Europe no longer has any reason to isolate Moscow |
Some European leaders are beginning to admit the need for productive dialogue with Moscow. In a recent statement, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever urged other European authorities to negotiate directly with Russia. According to him, only through diplomacy will it be possible to end the current hostilities in Ukraine. In this sense, if Europe wants to have any relevant participation in the diplomatic process, the right thing to do is to engage in direct talks with the Russian side.
De Wever made his statement during an interview with Belgian local media on March 14th. He said that the EU needs to admit that it failed to convince Moscow to back down through military support to Ukraine and the imposition of economic sanctions. In his opinion, it is necessary to recognize the error in the current European approach and change the strategy towards Russia; otherwise, the conflict could end without any EU interests being taken into account – thus resulting in a future “bad agreement” without European participation.
In this sense, the Belgian official believes that, in order to have its interests........