Russia is not a strategic partner

 Following the EU-Russia Summit Werner Schulz, Green MEP and Vice-Chair of the Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, declared:

 The first EU-Russia Summit held with Vladimir Putin back in the president's chair demonstrates nothing but the deep crisis in the EU-Russia relationship. Currently, Russia does not appear as a strategic partner of the EU. There are no common interests and values both partners share.

Russia must now share responsibility for what is happening in Syria. It hinders the joint actions taken by the international community and supports dictatorships, keeping alive such destructive regimes as those of Assad in Syria or Lukashenko in Belarus.

Even in his own country Putin is exercising a lot of power against civil society. Such actions are reflected in the restrictions of the right to demonstrate, the new laws against homosexuals and the extremists law against religious minorities.

It is high time for the EU to clear up its stand on Russia. It should decide on what grounds the EU's policy towards Russia should be based. It is questionable whether a new partnership agreement, which Russia constantly blocks, makes sense to negotiate at all.

Russia has a purely economic interest in the EU. This should not be acceptable for the EU. A partnership for modernisation must also include reforms in human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law.

Nobody needs a summit with general phrases and false expressions of sympathy. Therefore, it would also be sufficient to meet once a year.

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