The European External Action Service’s Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, Enrique Mora, and the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, held the first US-EU high-level dialogue on Russia on Wednesday 30 March.
The meeting followed commitments made at the EU-US Summit in June 2021, where both sides agreed to coordinate their policies and actions on Russia. In the light of current events, it focussed on “strategic objectives and policy coordination aimed at ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, according to a joint communiqué.
In particular, Ms Nuland and Mr Mora stressed the need to consolidate international support for the Ukrainian government and people, and to hold the Russian government to account.
They discussed continued close cooperation in coordination with the G7 to ensure rigorous implementation of these measures and additional measures “to further isolate Russia from the US and EU economies and the international financial system”.
Both sides stressed that they will continue to call on China not to circumvent or undermine sanctions against Russia, and not to provide any form of support for Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Ms Nuland and Mr Mora warned that the US and the EU will share information on war crimes and use all available tools to hold perpetrators to account.
The Under-Secretary and the Deputy Secretary General also discussed US and EU efforts to increase humanitarian assistance to all internally displaced persons and refugees.
Finally, they took stock of efforts to counter Kremlin propaganda and disinformation and to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.
The next high-level meeting should take place at the end of 2022.
See the statement: https://aeur.eu/f/11l (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)