Russia bans harm US partners in Europe: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Joaquin Flores, with the Center for Syncretic Studies from Belgrade, to investigate Russia’s decision in extending the ban on food imports from the West in retaliation for the extension of European sanctions against Moscow over the Ukrainian crisis.

This is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Many of the Western media downplay the effect of these Russian retaliatory measures. How do you feel about that?

Flores: It is something which is actually probably better in the short term for the Russian economy to the extent that the West wants to downplay them, these have had a very bad effect on some of the US’s most important partners in central Europe, for example Poland, and we recall for some time now that they had been promised originally that if Russia were to have a responsive measure to the EU and US sanctions against Russia, that the United States would do all that it could to find adequate market for such well-known products as the now famous Polish apples and of course after it happened and Poland could not export its apples anymore to the Russia, the US didn’t buy its surplus and many growers were up in arms and this is an analogy, which really is happening all over Europe and especially in central Europe, where countries cannot find these markets they had so depended on in Russia.

So, I think that it is not accurate really if the US says these are not important. They have a very bad political consequence between the US and its central European allies.

Press TV: I am glad you mentioned that the gap between the Europeans and the Americans are growing over this because obviously it hurts the Europeans the most as you said. So, how long can the Europeans hold on to this failing policy?

Flores: I think that it is the Europeans who are pushing right now to see this policy changed. It is something where you can pick up the newspaper every day and you can see growers associations, people involved in confections, canned goods, they are concerned now that they may be added to Russia’s list; and Russia had said from the start they are only interested in extending sanctions insofar as the European Union and US had the same.

So, they’ve only mirrored this; and originally of course they said that they would do it for six month; and I think that might have given some Europeans some hope that they could put pressure on their American partners to redress the issue before then.

On the Other hand, the six-month period from here puts us into the middle of winter, and this really doesn’t allow a lot of Russia’s internal markets to the right kind of planning and didn’t really give local Russian growers the sort of assurances that they needed to meet their demands and their markets and their business partners. So, it goes for a year.

HRM/HJL

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