AKEL MEP Giorgos Georgiou intervention on radio ‘Astra’

 

Monday 14 March 2022

Astra – How do you view the situation in Ukraine in relation to the European Union, the sanctions and the attempt to cause problems to Russia’s economy, with the EU again pursuing double standards policies if you compare it with how it is acting on the Cyprus problem?

GG – The EU could have done more. The most it could have done was to listen to the most reasonable of the voices that were being heard before the war broke out. It was the voices of Olaf Scholz and Macron who said: “If Russia is not safe, Europe cannot be safe too”.

Unfortunately, these voices were not heard. No room was given for diplomacy and the need for a peaceful settlement of the problem. No room was given to what Toumazos Tselepis had mentioned earlier on your program. Namely, that it is on the one hand the right of each country to choose where it wants to join militarily, politically or otherwise, but all this in a multi-polar and contradictory world with huge economic and geopolitical interests and antagonisms. These decisions should be made wisely and by weighing up the benefits and costs of any action that should be measured as the key criterion.

I want to refer your listeners to listen to one of the most prudent voices that really struck me, of a Senator who spoke in the U.S. Senate the other day, Bernie Sanders, who reminded us that after 1991 when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, Russia’s concerns about the possible expansion of NATO into its backyard essentially were recorded and accepted and even understood, and that Ukraine’s non-entry into NATO was an absolute “red line” for the entire Russian political world, not just for Putin.

Unfortunately, the sanctions on Russia, with our absolute condemnation, of course, of the invasion that is taking place, which is causing victims on all sides and, above all, the side-effects that will occur in the period ahead of us, both with regards matters of security, but above all, as regards the economic sphere, should have been taken by the EU in a measured and logical, calculated manner. It has not done so.

The sanctions were imposed and agreed by Biden together with Germany and France and were subsequently announced by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The first three packages of sanctions had already been agreed with the US. The US is so far away from Europe. It is Europe, which is emerging from a pandemic and a prolonged economic crisis and now another crisis is looming that I hope will not make the previous ones seem like a farce, that will actually pay the heavy cost.

Astra – However, the US is setting the EU under its control and it is clear that the major powers in the EU don’t realise this…

GG – In my intervention last week in the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg I asked myself whether some people want war, if certain people need war. In fact, I can now also add whether some people actually want the war to continue in order to further expose Putin, who is already exposed, of course, in order to throw Russia into economic misery and, in fact, to profit from an economic and commercial competition that is under way.

Look at what is happening now. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has finished. That is, it has been dismantled. What we would have done here with natural gas in our region, Biden has announced from afar that any pipelines are being terminated. Right now the EU is trying not to be dependent on energy from Russia, but it is in fact buying American LNG at a price that has increased tenfold over the past few years.

The German Chancellor Scholz announces 100 billion extra defence spending for Germany – we must be extremely concerned of this development. Germany is being rearmed with another 100 billion. Where will it buy these weapons from – besides its own industries? From the US, of course. The Europeans have increased their defence spending enormously overnight in an illegal manner. They even use money from the so-called EU “Peace Fund”, some 500 million, and are sending it to the Ukrainians. They have taken another 5 billion from another fund.

In other words, at this precise moment the militarization that is underway and being promoted in the EU and the increase in defense spending and armaments is outrageous – it’s as if we are preparing for a third world war!

In this climate of frenzy, therefore, we as AKEL could not agree with what was happening in the European Parliament. We believe that the necessary space was not given for a negotiation to take place. I repeat, our condemnation of the invasion is final, irrevocable and definitive. There is no doubt that international law is being violated, that the sovereignty of a country is being violated and that blood is being shed. Our souls are grieved by what is happening. However there are causes and reasons why we have got to this point.

Astra – Someone was telling me the other day who the moral instigator of this whole situation is and that in addition to the invader, the instigator must be punished, pointing to the US. The point is – as you also noted – that Europe is being led and it is Europe that is also neighbouring Russia and at the end of the day…

GG – …The question is this. Europe has been trying for many, many years – and it has not succeeded because it has internal rivalries and different interests – to build its so-called “strategic autonomy”. Is this project being strengthened by all that has been happening in recent days? In our view, this project is being further weakened and the European Union is becoming the tail of NATO.

But take note, all this is happening in its neighbourhood and does any security architecture for Europe take into account that Russia exists next to it? Has the EU erased the Russian Federation from its geography? Does it want it to fall into the arms of China? Have they accounted for the counter-sanctions that are sure to be applied by Putin as things are getting worse, and who will pay for them?

So permit me repeat the question. Who will pay for the sanctions? Mrs. von der Leyen said that “there is no more money” and that “we have already borrowed to give you money to cope with the pandemic”.

Let’s look at Cyprus now. Apart from the issue of energy, there is also the grain issue. There won’t be any tourism coming from Russia. The services sector will be affected. Who is going to pay for all these consequences? The people, the poor and the middle strata will pay. The EU’s sanctions are being imposed on the backs of the peoples.

Moreover, there is the question that always arises when a war breaks out. Who benefits and who is harmed? It is clear who benefits in our case – it is the Americans, the USA through the sales of arms and natural gas, from gaining an even bigger share in the trade competition and the war that has been launched against Russia and China to isolate them. Some industries in Europe will also gain. Several of the plans that Mrs. von der Leyen had initiated for the so-called “green transition” will be severely affected. Right now they are talking about going back to coal and lignite, and obviously gas. What France also evidently wants is nuclear energy. So we think that this project is also being very much undermined by all that is going on.