"By Friday" the new economic sanctions of the European Union against Russia for its role in the Ukrainian crisis will take effect. This was announced today in Brussels by the Italian Foreign Minister, Federica Mogherini, who from November will cover the role of High Representative for EU foreign policy. The sanctions will be prepared in the coming days by Coreper, the technical committee of the permanent representatives of the member states which prepares the meetings of the Council.
In a hearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, to which he presented the priorities of the six-month Italian presidency of the EU, Mogherini explained that "tomorrow the European Commission will present the list of new sanctions to Coreper, which will also meet on Thursday" to discuss them and to allow it to be approved the next day. Even if the Italian minister does not yet preside over the Foreign Affairs Council (Catherine Ashton remains in office until 30 October), the Italian presidency nonetheless leads Coreper and therefore has the responsibility of finalizing the technical work for the launch of the new sanctions decided by the Council European last Saturday.
The interventions against Russia, added Mogherini, will concern "the financial sector, arms trade and technological applications", but "the criteria for expanding the list of people and institutions affected" will also be discussed. The Italian minister has repeatedly used the expression "Russian aggression" to describe the situation in Ukraine. And he endorsed the words spoken yesterday by German President Jaochim Gauck, according to whom “with the conflict in Ukraine, Russia has effectively put an end to its strategic partnership with the EU. While it is in our interest to imagine that work can be done to restore it, this is not the situation we are in now, due to the Russian decisions. Moscow is still a strategic player in the region, but no longer a partner".
Mogherini underlined that the EU emerged from the informal Council meeting in Milan and from Saturday's EU summit “united and speaking with one voice: we need to work towards a political solution, because there is no military solution. We all agree on this, perhaps not here, but in the EU Council,” he added in response to the disapproving words of some Eastern MEPs.
The EU is aiming for "a lasting ceasefire on both sides - continued the head of the Farnesina -, a stop to the entry of weapons and military personnel, the release of the hostages and unlimited access to the area in which Malaysian Airlines plane shot down. It's not just a moral duty towards the victims: that event gave a global dimension to this crisis”. Finally, in view of the imminent NATO summit in Wales, the minister observed that "all the countries of the Alliance that have a common border with Russia must know that article 5 (of the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides for mutual assistance in case of aggression, ed) is not only on paper”.
