OpEd - SubScribe14

The commentators 24-07-14

...on EU and Russia

The EU is guilty of precipitating this crisis, and arguably of causing it. A fatal combination of vanity, hubris and naivety characterised EU policy towards Ukraine before its elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, was removed in a popular uprising earlier this year. Now the same EU, which recklessly attempted to lure Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence, reveals itself as being feeble and divided, and utterly incapable of dealing with the alarming consequences of its actions.
- Stephen Glover, Daily Mail

If we want to exercise any diplomatic clout, we will have to get our act together, identify some Europe-wide priorities, and decide how much we are prepared to pay for the privilege. So far, the EU has chalked up a mini-success with agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, and a third-party success with the opening of nuclear negotiations with Iran. But we have not cracked the closest, but somehow hardest, nut: Russia.
- Mary Dejevsky, The Guardian

To see the European Union acting so pusillanimously is very discouraging. France wants to hold on to its arms contracts for the jobs they are supposed to save in its naval shipyards. Germany, a hub of operations for the Russian energy giant Gazprom, is petrified of losing its own strategic position. Britain, for its part, despite recent statements by Prime Minister David Cameron, may still not be ready to forgo the colossal flows of Russian oligarchs’ ill-gotten cash upon which the City, London’s financial district, has come to rely. In European parlance, this is called the spirit of Munich — appeasement. And it is a disgrace.
- Bernard-Henri Lévy, International New York Times

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