The European Union may lose from the mutual exchange of sanctions with Russia hundreds of billions euro and thousands of jobs, the Russian State Duma’s deputy head of the committee on industries Vladimir Gutenev told reporters.
“Clearly, the unreasonable anti-Russian limitations, which the European bureaucracy imposed on its countries violating the international law, rules of the WTO, without consulting the UN, the sanctions accompanied with untrue information in the politically motivated media, will cause tremendous losses for the EU,” Itar Tass reported Tueday.
“The EU’s direct losses from the exchange of sanctions could amount to hundreds of billions of euro and thousands of jobs, let alone a significant loss of profit due to affected economic partnership,” the legislator said. “The European bureaucracy obeys fully the instructions from the US even if they contradict Europe’s political and economic interests.”
“Besides, by buying European equipment we are not adding to our security as, we can see, America is capable of influencing also this segment of our relations,” he said.
A Wiser Move
Thus, he said, “comes a logical question: Wouldn’t it be wiser for Russia to ‘look at’ not only China and other South-Eastern countries, but also directly at the US and the UK?”
“For example, in aviation construction, while continuing the cooperation with Airbus in supplies of parts, and first of all the titanium products, to arrange deals with Boeing,” he said adding there were enough preconditions already.
He explained, in Moscow in 1993, Boeing’s Service Center started its operations and from 1998 the company’s design bureau started working. Russia’s Avisma is Boeing’s partner, which supplies 40% of the titanium Boeing is using.
“Development of cooperation of the kind, of course, will give additional jobs to the American economy and may even influence greatly the atmosphere of the Russian-American relations,” he said. “I believe, in this case American policies will become more balanced and pragmatic.”
Special Commission
The deputy said it would be necessary to organize a special governmental commission to analyze possible risks in buying high-tech products and equipment by companies with state shares from countries which are using economic and political sanctions against Russia.
“Here is moment of truth. Will the sanctions be lifted soon? Russia has demonstrated exclusively balanced position and did everything depending on it.
“The president, by having initiated the talks between the opposing sides, favored the ceasefire in Ukraine’s south-east. We have demonstrated we are ready to move towards Kiev’s authorities in the gas issue, which is not taken unambiguously by the Russian public opinion. Now the ball is the West’s side,” he said.
Sanctions in Place
The EU has decided to keep sanctions on Russia in place, judging that Ukraine’s peace deal is not fully effective, BBC reported.
EU ambassadors who met on Tuesday had noted some “encouraging developments” since the 5 September ceasefire was agreed, an EU spokeswoman said.
But other parts of the peace deal “will need to be properly implemented”, said the spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic.
Sanctions target senior Russian officials, as well as Russia’s oil industry, defense firms and banks.
