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European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová hit back at Moscow after she was banned from entering Russia, telling Monday’s Brussels Playbook that the regime “aims to divide us and sow mistrust” in Europe.
“There has been enough evidence for everyone to realize that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not a standard international partner,” said Jourová, one of the eight European officials targeted by the Kremlin’s sanctions, implemented in retaliation for EU sanctions on Russians. She cited the Dutch reports on the 2014 MH17 plane crash in Ukraine, the 2018 Salisbury attack in the U.K. on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and the Vrbětice case, in which Czech authorities recently accused Russian intelligence agents of being behind a warehouse blast in 2014 that killed two people.
“We have to be systematic and firm,” Jourová said. “I don’t think the current Kremlin’s regime will understand the language of diplomacy as long as there are no significant financial consequences.”
Jourová said EU governments needed to understand that “in today’s Russia, everything is connected to the regime. There are no ‘just economic’ projects. Everything is political and we should follow up on our statements with concrete actions that have impact.” That comment was a reference to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will ship natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. With the pipeline almost complete, the German government has been under increasing pressure to scrap it.
Jourová — a Czech politician who is the Commission vice president for values and transparency and has led an EU campaign against disinformation from Russia and China — also discussed Russian press freedom and disinformation tactics. “While independent media and journalists are labeled as ‘foreign agents,’ state-controlled media continue to spread disinformation,” she told Playbook. The Commission is working on “a tool to impose costs on purveyors of foreign interference and influence operations.”
“I am very worried about countries — close to the EU but also in the EU — trying to copy Kremlin’s playbook,” Jourová said, “with attacks against independent journalists and attempts to control the media.”
In a separate interview with La Stampa, European Parliament President David Sassoli, whom the Kremlin also banned from traveling to Russia, said he sees the Kremlin’s sanctions as a vindication of the EU’s foreign policy. “Despite those underestimating the ability of the European Parliament to affect foreign policy, this story shows that our positions have great echo in international debates,” he said.
“I hope this measure can be lifted and I can be allowed to go to Moscow to talk about fundamental rights and political freedoms. I think the citizens of that great country expect it. And they deserve it,” Sassoli added.
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