MOSCOW, June 8. /TASS/. The European Union's rapprochement with NATO raises the question of the EU's military-political autonomy and increasingly turns it into an unsinkable aircraft carrier near Russia's borders, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said at the international forum Primakov Readings in Moscow on Tuesday.
"It's worth recalling a famous remark by NATO's first secretary-general, Lord Hastings Ismay, who said that the alliance's task was to 'keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.' If we replace Germany with the European Union in this formula, the trends that we observe in the military-political sphere and the rapprochement between the European Union and NATO will indicate quite clearly that there is a big question mark over the military-political autonomy that had been proclaimed as one of the pillars of the European Union's future global role," Grushko said.
He emphasized the idea that the military-political sphere largely determined the essence of relations between states.
"As we can see, the European Union today increasingly turns into a derivative of the Americans' strategic views on what military-political means are to be employed to operate this unsinkable aircraft carrier, moored near Russia's shores," Grushko concluded.
EU's risky decision
Russian deputy foreign minister also called the decision of some European airlines not to fly into Belarusian airspace a threat for the passengers of such flights.
"The very decision of some European companies to fly around Belarusian airspace creates a threat for the passengers because this was an established route and absolutely safe one. Hundreds of planes — thousands even, I think — were crossing Belarusian airspace daily," he said.