The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, reiterated, on Monday 18 July, that the Kremlin is solely responsible for the worsening hunger in the world and not the EU sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Hammering home the EU’s position to the press at the end of the EU foreign affairs ministers’ meeting, which again addressed the issue of the stranded grain in the Black Sea, he said that Russia “wants to destroy the Ukrainian nation while at the same time creating a food and energy crisis”.
Hence the need, he said, to “counter the Russian narrative” on both soaring food and oil prices – something discussed by the EU27 ministers (see EUROPE 12994/10).
“From the beginning, food and fertiliser exports were outside the scope of the sanctions. And in the new sanctions envisaged, there are no restrictions on trade in fertilisers and foodstuffs and no limits on banking capacity for payments”, Mr Borrell reiterated.
He also recalled that “some economic operators try to avoid certain markets”, the EU explains to them that nothing prevents them from exporting. “We are doing everything we can to transport this grain by other means, through the channels of solidarity, through the Black Sea, through Romania, through Bulgaria. But that is not enough, so I hope (...) that this week it will be possible to reach an agreement to unblock Odessa and other Ukrainian ports”, Mr Borrell said on his arrival at the EU Council.
He was asked about the EU/Ukraine/Turkey/United Nations agreement in principle to establish a secure maritime corridor to move grain out of Ukraine. Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations will meet again on Wednesday in Turkey.
But before that, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet on the subject this Tuesday in Iran, according to the Kremlin quoted by AFP.
In the meantime, the Croatian Minister, Gordan Grlić Radman, speaking in Brussels on Monday, said his country was ready to “act, according to its capacities, via the Adriatic ports to transport cereals”.
Luxembourg’s Minister Jean Asselborn, for his part, expressed the hope that there would be “a change of mindset on the various continents and that people would realise that the shortages do not stem from EU sanctions”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)