MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/. The EU is transforming from an economic integration project into a military-political bloc, with its anti-Russian moves plunging it into crisis, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told kp.ru.
"Before our eyes, the European Union is turning from an economic integration project aimed at preventing a new war in Europe into a military-political bloc serving the confrontational policy of the United States and NATO," he said.
According to Grushko, the EU "has been turned into an instrument of American strategy" in Eurasia and is "losing its position in the global economy." "The competitiveness of the European Union is seriously undermined. There is a real risk of deindustrialization. In many ways, this is the price of the artificial disconnection of many years of cooperation with Russia," the senior diplomat pointed out.
Grushko pointed to the fact that for the first time in many years the EU is facing such large-scale problems as rising prices, falling incomes, energy shortage, record inflation, growing internal political instability, migration problems, increasing risks of growth of cross-border crime, drug trafficking and terrorism. "The situation is aggravated by the failure of the EU bureaucracy to manage the crises," he noted. "The perception of the surrounding world as a 'jungle' and Europe as a 'Garden of Eden' by European officials only confirms the degree of inadequacy of their perception of the new reality," the senior diplomat emphasized.
According to Grushko, all these circumstances "have an extremely negative impact on the EU's political subjectivity and independence in making serious decisions." "In essence, the ambitions to achieve 'strategic autonomy' for Europe, which were advocated by the French, have been axed," the deputy foreign minister concluded.