Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s response to a media question following the EU Summit
Question: Yesterday, a two-day summit of the European Union concluded in Brussels. How does the Russian Foreign Ministry assess its results?
Maria Zakharova: The last summit of the year, which took place on December 14-15 in Brussels, drew a line under the European Union’s disappointing results. The once peaceful and prosperous integration association is experiencing a rapid decline in both political and economic influence in the world due to numerous geopolitical miscalculations made by its pro-American leadership.
Rather than directing the resources needed for solving numerous domestic problems and asserting its position in the emerging multipolar world order, the EU is focused on serving US interests, including enriching the American military and industrial complex. This approach is based on the flawed concept of the “rules-based order,” in which the European Union is relegated to a dependent position as the American periphery. Time after time, Brussels has proven that it is not ready to play an independent global role or take responsibility, not even for itself. It is apparent that EU leaders leaving their positions next year are acting like temporary workers, leading the union into a dead end where a complete loss of sovereignty and international political subjectivity await. Their main goal is to gain favour with Washington in order to ensure the continuation of their own careers.
Of course, not everyone in Europe agrees with this humiliating course of the European Union. Increasingly, people are becoming irritated by double standards, constant dictate, alignment with Washington, and financial blackmail. Solidarity within the EU has ceased to be a free democratic choice of member countries, instead becoming a political obligation.
It is no surprise that internal tensions are growing in the EU under these conditions, with cracks appearing throughout the European Union. It is becoming increasingly difficult for EU members to maintain a united front when there are widening gaps in approaches on almost every agenda item of the EU summit, whether it be the situation in Ukraine, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, EU enlargement and institutional reform, migration, or budgetary and financial issues. The European bureaucracy is clumsily attempting to cover up the chaos that is happening through any means possible, even resorting to manipulations with procedures. It reaches the point of absurdity when legally dubious and politically biased decisions are made with the help of unscrupulous manipulations, in the absence of some heads of state and government, such as starting pre-accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova, which not only fail to meet the basic criteria of the EU, but directly contradict them, or implementing further unilateral sanctions against Russia, which, like all previous ones, will cause greater harm to the European Union itself. Such dictatorial behaviour of Brussels clearly shows member countries that they are denied the right to hold their own opinions or to protect their interests.
It is understandable that, according to surveys in European countries, fewer people in the EU have trust in European institutions, which are divorced from the needs of ordinary citizens and are solely focused on satisfying geopolitical ambitions that have nothing to do with the interests of the people. The population of European countries, already facing difficult socioeconomic conditions, will have to pay a high price for the EU’s confrontational policy and the consequences of opportunistic decisions on Ukraine and Moldova.
In this context, it is natural that the most responsible European politicians are increasingly prioritising national interests over empty mantras of “European solidarity” that are disconnected from real needs.
