30/07/2014
Since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, says
Van Rompuy, "the European Union has been calling on the Russian leadership to work towards a peaceful resolution".
"We have", he says, "done this collectively and bilaterally. We regret to say that despite some mixed messages coming from Moscow, and exchanges in the Normandy and other formats, there has been scarce delivery on commitments. Our call has been, in practice, left unheeded".
So is demonstrated the complete incomprehension on the part of the "colleagues" as to the situation they have created, and the absurdity of their imposing sanctions on Russia for something for which they share responsibility.
For the rest, the
Financial Times is as good a source as any, telling us that the EU has "agreed to its toughest sanctions against Russia since the end of the Cold War". It has backed sweeping measures intended to cripple the Russian economy and convince the Kremlin to abandon its support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
And, it appears, the "colleagues" are not messing about. The restrictions target Russia's financial, energy and defence sectors and include a measure that would prevent Russia's largest state-owned banks from issuing stock or bonds in European markets.
In addition, they will bar exports aimed at modernising the Russian oil industry and impose a blanket arms embargo that includes a carve-out allowing existing contracts â including a â¬1.2bn French deal to sell helicopter attack ships to the Russian navy â to go forward. Details of the sanctions are expected to be published by the end of the week, when the measures will go into effect.
And true to form, Obama
is following in their wake, also announcing sanctions, saying they will make Russia's "weak economy even weaker". The co-ordinated actions of the US and European Union, he claims, would "have an even bigger bite" on Russia's economy.
Elsewhere,
analysis suggests that sanctions will not make Putin back off. He knows that if he were to step back, pressure on him will only increase. Any serious concession he makes will lead to him losing power in Russia, which will probably send the country into a major turmoil. Yet any serious concession by the United States - in terms of accommodating Russia - will mean a palpable reduction of US global influence, with consequences in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.
The US, the EU and Russia, therefore, are locked into an
impasse, an unsolvable situation. But having effectively accused Putin of conspiring with the separatists, "leading to the killing of almost 300 innocent civilians in their flight from the Netherlands to Malaysia", there is no way either the EU or the US can expect the Russian leadership "to work towards a peaceful resolution".
So the madness descends. Imbued with their own brand of self-righteousness, neither the EU member states nor the US are going back off, but neither is Russia. No matter how clever they all think themselves, there is no way this ends well.
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