MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. The European Union’s efforts to ensure its independence with regard to security are met with strong opposition from the United States and NATO, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on the results of Russia’s diplomatic activities in 2021.
"We are interested in an independent European Union and have been keeping a close eye on the mixed trends within the union," he pointed out. "We can see that the EU is concerned that its interests will be ignored. They openly admitted it after developments in Afghanistan, the saga of Australian submarines and the creation of the so-called AUKUS. Some EU members are sending increasingly strong signals about the need to ensure strategic independence with regard to security issues but at the same time, there is a very tough lobby in the EU that opposes any attempts to separate the EU’s security from NATO and insists that NATO is the key to security, including that of the European Union," Lavrov added.
The Russian top diplomat believes that such issues "need to be resolved between these two organizations." "Actually, we aren’t very much concerned about who will be engaged in talks if the process is led by the US," he went on to say. "It is on them [the Americans] that the security policy in Europe depends, as well as in other parts of the world where NATO is actively trying to strengthen its foothold despite the organization’s initial goals," Lavrov emphasized.
According to the Russian foreign minister, the United States managed "to regain its active dominating role on the European continent." "Through NATO, they are actively pursuing a policy aimed at harmonizing all activities related to military matters that involve NATO and the European Union," Lavrov noted. "There are special agreements on military mobility that oblige the EU nations who aren’t NATO members to provide their territory and transport infrastructure for the movement of NATO forces. It is a serious process. Both Sweden and Finland, by the way, as well as Austria, from time to time and even regularly participate in NATO’s drills, whose scenarios are far from harmless," Lavrov stressed.