European Commission President Juncker’s planned meeting with Vladimir Putin at the latter’s pseudo Davos-style conference is a mistake ahead of a critical decision on whether to renew EU sanctions against Russia.

European Commission President Juncker’s planned meeting with Vladimir Putin at the latter’s pseudo Davos-style conference is a mistake ahead of a critical decision on whether to renew EU sanctions against Russia.

Instead of implementing the Minsk agreement, Russia has continued to seek destabilisation of its European neighbourhood, and the forthcoming NATO summit is once again considering how it can secure Eastern Europe and the Baltic states against Russian aggression. Even if Juncker is only there to naively push forward economic agenda, President’s meeting with Putin will be seen by Russia, and its state media, as a tacit acceptance of their aggression and a propaganda coup for Putin.
President Juncker claims to have a mandate of his own. He became Commission President because the centre-right European People’s Party has the most MEPs. Given that a large number of those MEPs are from Central and Eastern Europe where we are only too aware of how Russia operates, those MEPs should now exert maximum influence on the man who owes his job to their electoral success, and halt this ill-advised visit.

Yours sincerely,
Roberts Zile MEP