Tomorrow, (19 March) EU leaders arrive in Brussels for a two day summit where they will discuss energy security, Ukraine, and the EU economy. With sanctions against Russia due to expire in July, and amid deep divisions as to whether to extend the punitive measures for another six months, talks over the Ukraine crisis undoubtedly prove to be one of the thorniest. Some EU member states, notably the UK, Poland, and the Baltic states, are in favour of extending the sanctions on energy, finance, and the defence sectors. Others, including France, Spain, and Austria are against, either out of fear that early extension may provoke Moscow and endanger the fragile Minsk 2 agreement, or out of a desire to return to a normalisation of relations.
In a newly published piece for EUobserver, Sijbren de Jong, Willem Th. Oosterveld, Willem Auping (HCSS) and Daniel Fiott (Institute for European Studies, VUB Brussels) write that to heed these calls for normalisation however would be naive, for they beget the very intra-EU divisions and rifts in the transatlantic alliance that Vladimir Putin wants.
The full article can be read here.
On 25 March 2015, a slightly adapted version of the article featured on Atlantic-Community.org
Experts
Related Content
