How the worsening of relations with the European Union can affect the economic situation in the country

Kremlin today

On February 2, The Moscow’s Simonovsky Court replaced the suspended sentence of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the “Yves Rocher” case with a real one – 2.8 years in a general regime colony. The ECHR was not long in coming, and on February 17, at the meeting of the Chamber of Judges, it decided to immediately release the politician.

Possible consequences

Last year in December the European Union introduced a new sanctions mechanism aimed at individuals and involving a ban on entry into EU countries and the freezing of European assets for human rights violations, and this is what exactly the ECHR accuses the Russian authorities of. The question is whether the EU’s threats will escalate into real sanctions, and if they do, whether they will remain at the level of personal ones or become a global problem for all Russians. Here is what political analyst Andrey Kolesnikov thinks about this:

“The European Union has long understood that the most important thing is personal sanctions, which don’t hit, at least with terrible force, the population of Russia, because the population of Russia has nothing to do with it. Therefore, I think, and I hope in any case, that these will be personal sanctions, and not such economic consequences for consumers.”— said Kolesnikov in an interview with “Present time”.

And here is what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with journalist Vladimir Solovyov about the deterioration of Russian-European relations:

“Russia is ready to break off relations with the European Union if Brussels imposes sanctions against sensitive sectors of the Russian economy.”

He also added that Russia doesn’t want to isolate itself from the rest of the world, but it is necessary to be prepared for this.

“If you want peace, be prepare for war,” Lavrov concluded.

Possible victims of sanctions

Earlier, the FBK published a list of 35 people, who, in their opinion, should be subject to personal sanctions, including well-known TV presenters, Russian billionaires and representatives of law enforcement agencies. In this regard it is important to answer the question of whether it is possible to impose personal sanctions on individuals, and not affect the country’s economy as a whole. It’s obvious that in the era of globalization, the consequences of any careless and straightforward actions, even those of a declarative point nature, can inevitably effect on entire sectors of the economy and their ultimate target can be ordinary people.
It’s still difficult to predict what actions the Russian authorities may take in opposition to possible EU sanctions, but another round of mutual confrontation and hostility is guaranteed to spoil the already not very warm relations between the countries. The reasonableness and deliberation of such decisions cannot raise a huge number of questions among politicians and ordinary citizens on both sides of the conflict, but I want to believe that common sense and the spirit of good-neighborly relations will take over.

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