Eye for an eye. High tension between Europe and Russia. Moscow responds to the European sanctions for the Navalny case and the occupation of Crimea with a round of countermeasures that also targets Italy.
Italy also ends up in the viewfinder. Eight senior EU officials are affected, among them is the president of the European Parliament David Sassoli . With him the vice president of the EU Commission Vera Jourova for jobs and transparency, Ivars Abolins , president of the National Electronic Media Council of Latvia, Maris Baltins , director of the National Language Center of Latvia, Jacques Maire , member of the French delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,Jorg Raupach , Head of the Berlin Prosecutor’s Office, Asa Scott , Head of the Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Safety Laboratory, Total Defense Research Institute, Sweden and Ilmar Tomusk , Head of the Language Department of Estonia. All eight will be banned from entering Russia.
“The European Union continues its policy of unilateral and illegitimate restrictive measures against Russian citizens and organizations”, thunders a statement from the Foreign Ministry of Sergei Lavrov .
The reaction of the Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio was immediate , who, according to Adnkronos, would have expressed “full solidarity” with Sassoli. But the proximity is transversal to the political forces. The EU CommissionerPaolo Gentiloni speaks of sanctions “as unjustified as useless”. From the Democratic Party a real outcry for the dem colleague at the helm of the EU Parliament.
“After the sanctions in Moscow, they represent us even more”, writes on Twitter Lia Quartapelle, deputy of dem in the Foreign Affairs Commission. She echoes the deputy secretary Irene Tinagli , “You are wrong if you think you are intimidating the EU”. An “unprecedented act of hostility”, writes the secretary of the dem Enrico Letta in a note , “the Democratic Party reacts harshly in defense of European democracy. And we continue to ask even more forcefully for the release of #Navalny ”.
Solidarity also from the group of MEPs of the League led by Marco Zanni, proof of a change in relations with Russia of Matteo Salvini’s party which in Strasbourg saw several statements condemning Moscow for the Navalny case and the maneuvers in Ukraine. Roberto Fico , president of the Chamber and leading face of the Five Star Movement, speaks of “a gesture of hostility that is not compatible with EU values”.
On 2 March the EU Council had imposed restrictive measures (travel bans and asset freezes) on four Russian citizens “responsible for serious violations of human rights”: Alexander Bastrykin , head of the Russian Investigative Committee; Igor Krasnov , Attorney General; Viktor Zolotov , number one in the National Guard; Alexander Kalashnikov, director of the Federal Penitentiary System.
“This is the first time that the European Union has imposed sanctions in the context of the new EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime ”, underlines the note from the Council with reference to the so-called European Magnitsky Act. A move coordinated with the US State Department, with an unprecedented simultaneous application of sanctions in Moscow on the same day.
On April 16, the Biden administration upped the ante with a new round of sanctions against the Russian government for interfering in the November presidential election and hacking software company Solarwinds. 32 Russian individuals and entities linked to the government and intelligence were targeted, while ten diplomats linked to the Russian intelligence were expelled from the embassy in Washington.
However, the Kremlin’s reaction against the EU marks a new stage in the diplomatic escalation between the two sides. Indeed, it is not often that officials of the caliber of a president of the European Parliament are hit by individual sanctions. Now a counter move by the EU Council is expected.
