European Union warns Russia “is on a worrying authoritarian path”

The High Representative of the European Union (EU) for External Relations, Josep Borrell, warned on Thursday that his relations with Russia continue to deteriorate, to the point of ensuring that he takes “a worrying authoritarian path” which “disconnects him even more” from the supranational bloc..

“One thing is certain: the unity of the EU, fully anchored in the five guiding principles, is essential for building our future relationship.”, He expressed during a joint press conference with the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio, in Rome. He also hoped that “the European Council will discuss the situation and the way forward”.

Borrell is in Rome for the first anniversary of the European mission EUNavforMed, where he will visit the Italian capital today before heading to Sicily tomorrow to visit the Sigonella naval and air base.

The statement once again illustrates the tension between the two sides, which has been exacerbated in recent months and resulted in sanctions from Brussels to Moscow for the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as well as the repression of demonstrations against the fact and in favor of democracy in the country.

More specifically, the EU In early March, he imposed measures against four senior Russian officials responsible for Navalny’s imprisonment. It was the first time that the group imposed a sanction for human rights violations, a new instrument that the EU has equipped itself to respond in an agile way to gross violations of fundamental rights.

The relationship had already deteriorated since the end of 2020 when the two sides came up against the crisis in Belarus, given Moscow’s support for Minsk dictator Alexandr Lukashenko, who cracked down on protests against him for weeks after winning an election widely described as fraudulent by the international community.

In February, Borrell’s trip to the Russian capital was marked by rudeness and further widened the gap. Shortly after Moscow expelled three diplomats from European countries for attending opposition protests in favor of Navalny.

Russia, for its part, warned in mid-February that it “is ready” to sever relations with the European Union if the bloc imposes economic sanctions on it. “We are ready for this,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview on YouTube channel Solovyev Live. “If we find again, as has happened many times before, that sanctions are imposed that pose risks to our economy, even in the most sensitive areas», He expressed.

He added, “We don’t want to isolate ourselves from the peaceful life, but we have to be ready for it. If you want peace, you have to prepare for war ”.

Lavrov also accused Western countries of using the Navalny affair as a pretext to increase pressure on Russia. “If it hadn’t been Navalny, they would have found something else,” he said. Following the Chancellor’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call that Russia does not want to sever relations, but must be prepared “in case madness prevails and such hostile events would occur “on the part of the EU. “We must ensure the security of the most sensitive strategic areas and be prepared to replace with national infrastructure anything we may be deprived of.“, He added.

The EU is Russia’s biggest trading partner. The bloc imported $ 162.5 billion in goods from Russia in 2019, compared to $ 84.4 billion in exports.

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