In Moscow, foreign policy chief faces questions about EU’s human rights record and publicly criticizes US.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell paid a rare visit to Moscow on Friday and stood by as his host, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, called the EU an “unreliable partner” and accused European leaders of lying about Alexei Navalny’s poisoning.
Borrell insisted on making the trip, which he described as accepting a longstanding invitation from Lavrov, days after Russia drew international condemnation for jailing opposition leader Navalny, and said it was important to pursue dialogue. But while Borrell told EU foreign ministers that he did not want to be a “mailman” simply delivering messages, he did not identify any clear objective for his visit, apart from “putting aside negative rhetoric.”
The perils of a joint appearance with Lavrov quickly became apparent at a news conference Friday morning when Borrell was ambushed by the Russian government-controlled news agency Sputnik with a question about Cuba, in which he was baited into condemning the U.S. embargo on Havana.
Injecting what appeared to be a dash of trolling but was apparently just a mistake, the official interpreter providing live English translation to Borrell — and for the livestream of the event — said that the Sputnik journalist’s question about Cuba was suggested by “American colleagues.” In fact, the reporter said the question was requested by Sputnik’s “Latin America” desk. The same journalist had used his main question to turn the tables on Borrell by asking about alleged human rights abuses in Latvia.
Borrell was clearly unprepared for the attack.
“About Cuba, I am a little bit surprised, I didn’t expect to talk about Cuba here in Moscow,” he said before gamely answering the question. “You know that the European Union rejects the U.S. embargo to Cuba and we continue to express this also vis-à-vis the new U.S. administration,” he said. “We expect the U.S. administration to review its position with respect to Cuba.”
Lavrov quickly pounced. He seized the opportunity both to highlight a glaring disagreement between Brussels and Washington but also to deliver a sharp attack on sanctions policy and to accuse the EU of hypocrisy in pursuing multilateralism as a cover for Western exceptionalism. At several other points in the news conference, Lavrov denounced the EU’s sanctions against Russia over the annexation of Crimea, calling them “unilateral and illegitimate restrictions … imposed under false pretenses.”
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The European Union’s foreign policy chief paid a rare visit to Moscow and stood by as his host called the EU an “unreliable partner” and accused European leaders of lying about Alexei Navalny’s poisoning https://t.co/8NcQp6mu7d
— POLITICO (@politico) February 7, 2021
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