France's Macron urges better long-term relations with Russia
Europe needs to strive for better relations with Russia in the long run, French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday, adding that while he isn't proposing lifting sanctions they have changed nothing about Russia's behavoir.
Macron told the Munich Security Conference that a "credible" approach to working with Russia would be to take the line that "we are demanding, we are giving no ground inside our principles on frozen conflicts, but will re-engage in a strategic dialogue -- that will take time."
Relations between EU countries and Moscow have already been strained since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and fighting broke out between Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. That festering military conflict has left 14,000 dead since that time. The U.S. and the European Union slapped sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine.
French companies who are engaged in trade with Russia have pressured Macron to greatly help repair the EU's relations with Moscow also to ease economic sanctions.
During a visit to Poland this month, Macron said it had been a "a significant error to distance ourselves from part of Europe that people don't feel comfortable about."
On Saturday, he said the result of recent years is "a completely inefficient system." Which includes "sanctions that have changed nothing at all in Russia -- I am not proposing at all to lift them, I am just stating this," he added.
In advocating more dialogue with Russia, Macron pointed to the revival late this past year of the four-way summits between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
He said "we need in the long term to reengage with Russia but also emphasize its responsibility in its role" as a long lasting person in the U.N. Security Council. "It cannot constantly be a member that blocks advances by this council."
He said that he expects Russia will continue playing a destabilizing role in matters such as other countries' election campaigns, either directly or indirectly. "I don't have confidence in miracles -- I really believe in politics, in the actual fact that human will can transform things whenever we give ourselves the means," he said.
However, Macron argued that Russia's military buildup is financially unsustainable. He also says an alliance with China wouldn't normally be "durable," in part because "Chinese hegemony isn't compatible with the Russian sense of pride." That, he added, points to the need for a "European partnership."
