Brussels, 25/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 25 April, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that the foreign affairs ministers of the EU will meet “as soon as possible” to examine further sanctions against Russia (our translation throughout). “We must not only reflect, but also consider new sanctions (…). To this end, the European foreign affairs ministers will meet as soon as possible”, she told a press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Michael Mann, spokesperson to High Representative Catherine Ashton, said that he had no information on this. Earlier that day, in a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Merkel stressed that “Russia is not observing the Geneva agreement, which naturally has an impact on the separatists in Ukraine”. “Russia is, or would be, I am quite convinced, able to bring the separatists (…) back to the peaceful path of constitutional debate and preparations for the elections, but unfortunately, such signals have not so far been in evidence”, she added.
French President François Hollande, his American counterpart Barack Obama, Merkel and the prime ministers of the UK, David Cameron, and Italy, Matteo Renzi, “called for the G7 to react quickly and raised the question of new sanctions of the international community against Russia”. They have agreed to call for the role of the OSCE mission to be reinforced.
In a letter, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for a joint EU-US-Russia-Ukraine mission, explaining that this agreement requires “visible political support”. “Deploying a high-level joint delegation representing the four signatories of the agreement to Kiev and the eastern and western regions of the country could illustrate this support”, the German minister stated in his letter to the OSCE, the United States, the EU, Russia and Ukraine, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung, which has published extracts of it. When asked about this mission, Mann made it clear that the EU “supports any initiative to de-escalate the situation and reinforce the OSCE mission”.
The previous day, Tusk told the PAP news agency that “Europe should be prepared for the worst-case scenario as regards the development of the situation in Ukraine (…). Is the world politically prepared for an act of aggression or the dissolution of the Ukrainian state? Today, not yet”. (CG with JK)