BRUSSELS, July 23, 7:02 /ITAR-TASS/. The European Union has failed to run off the sanction track, although it is evident that this track is a path to nowhere, Russian Permanent Representative at the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said on Wednesday.
Speaking to Russian journalists, he commented the Tuesday meeting of the EU foreign ministers who had agreed by Thursday to once again expand its blacklist and look at additional measures to cut down military contracts, financial and innovation services to Russia.
“The resolution they passed is intermediate. Let us wait and see what the European Commission’s services and the European foreign policy office produce on Thursday, July 24,” he said. Regrettably, political assessments of the Ukrainian crisis are still lopsided. The EU council preferred to turn a blind eye on the death of civilians in, for instance, Lugansk.”
“I understand that the pressure coming from the United States on countries of the European Union is unlikely to subside. But, if we are speaking about economic sanctions, it should be realized that what the EU calls third-phase sanctions, or sectoral sanctions, would require a new summit of the European Union,” the Russian diplomat noted.
Nonetheless, he admitted that the European Union was “aware of the seriousness of the situation.”
“The language of the final document of the Tuesday meeting of the EU council of foreign ministers echoes the Monday resolution passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council,” Chizhov said, adding that he hoped the European Union understood that “such tragic accidents as the Malaysian airliner crash are not a pretext for scoring political points.