BRUSSELS, September 15. /TASS/. The EU should approve the regime of sanctions against people violating human rights and name it after Russian blogger Alexey Navalny, in a manner similar to the Magnitsky Act in the US, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said on Tuesday during a session of the European Parliament. Borrell also said that the incident with Navalny "will have an impact on European Union-Russia relations," but did not elaborate.
"When I took office [as EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy] I immediately launched [negotiations for] a global human rights sanctions regime, [initiated in 2019 - TASS]," Borrell said.
According to the EU top diplomat, since then his initiative was discussed a couple of times but now the case of Navalny is bound to spur the EU members states "to stop discussing and to start acting" and to approve "this human rights sanctions regime."
Borrell referred to the US Magnitsky sanctions regime and suggested that the EU could call its regime the Navalny regime. Thus, the name of Alexey Navalny could be "associated to a sanctions regime for people who violated human rights," Borrell said.
"We can expect that the poisoning of Mr Navalny will have an impact on European Union-Russia relations, we are going to discuss that in the next Foreign Affairs Council," he said.
Responding to the calls of the members of the European Parliament to stop the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, he noted that the EU institutions do not have the authority to do this, and the issue is up to the EU countries supporting that project.
Navalny 'poisoning' saga
On August 20, a plane carrying Navalny made an emergency landing in the Russian city of Omsk after the blogger had suddenly felt unwell in mid-flight. Navalny was taken to hospital in a coma and was hooked up to a ventilator. On August 22, he was flown to Germany for treatment at Berlin’s Charite hospital.
On September 2, the German government said, citing the results of a toxicological analysis by Bundeswehr experts, that Navalny had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. Later on, Berlin said that three European laboratories, including those in France and Sweden, had confirmed the conclusions made by German specialists. After that several political leaders in Germany demanded termination of the Nord Stream 2 project following the incident with the Russian blogger. Before that, official Berlin always supported the project.