Russia Blasts ‘Scam’ EU Candidate Status for Ukraine

 

"I think that's certainly their case," she added, "Given these maneuvers, these zigzags that we now are witnessing from the West with regards to Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia, it is no longer necessary to prove anything in terms of market conditions. There is a direct link between economics and politics. And this is exactly what they have always stood against."

 

According to Zakharova, it is precisely this contradiction that has led the neoliberal system to a total dead-end.

 

"The neoliberal system is based on a liberal economy, on free trade, first and foremost. Without politics. Nowadays, we see that economic mechanisms are shaped exclusively by political motives. This is a perfect example of the crisis of neoliberalism that we now frequently talk about," the spokeswoman stressed.

 

Last Friday, the European Commission recommended that the European Council (EU summit) grant EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova and postpone the question of granting it to Georgia. The decision to grant or deny candidate status will be taken by EU member states’ presidents and prime ministers at a summit in Brussels on June 23-24. They will take into account the European Commission’s recommendations. If the EU summit grants candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, immediately after that the European Commission will recommend suspending the accession process until each country carries out certain reforms, namely strengthening the judicial system and battling corruption, as well as deoligarchization.

 

Russia’s retaliation against Lithuania for the partial ban on Russian transit to Kaliningrad will be practical, Zakharova also told a news briefing on Wednesday.

 

"As for retaliatory measures, possible counter-steps are being worked out in an interdepartmental format. Both Lithuania and the EU have been notified through their diplomatic missions in Moscow that such actions are inadmissible and that the steps taken should be overturned and the situation put back on the legal, legitimate track. If this fails to be done, then, of course, retaliatory moves will be inevitable. This was emphasized at all levels in Moscow," she said.

 

"Regarding the question what they will be like. Will they be exclusively in the diplomatic dimension? The answer is: NO. They will not be in the diplomatic dimension. They will be practical," Zakharova added.

 

Asked when the retaliation might follow and what it would be like, Zakharova stated that it depended on whether Lithuania would agree to lift the ban on transit.

 

The Kaliningrad Region’s governor, Anton Alikhanov, earlier announced that the Lithuanian Railways had notified the Kaliningrad Region Railways that starting from June 18 they limited the transit of a number of goods from Russia to the exclave region due to the European sanctions against Moscow. Alikhanov added that Lithuania's actions were illegal and violated agreements, because when the country joined the EU, it guaranteed unhampered transit to the region. Goods will be ferried by sea, he continued.

 

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that it considered Lithuania's actions as openly hostile and demanded that the restrictions be lifted immediately. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed Vilnius’s decision as unprecedented and illegal. Within days Russia will carry out "deep analysis" of the situation and devise retaliatory measures, he stated.

 

In the meantime, Lithuania argues that it has not introduced any unilateral or additional restrictions, but merely "consistently applies EU sanctions". EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell on Monday evening said that there was no blockade of Kaliningrad and the overland transit of passengers and goods continued, while the transit ban applied only to goods included in the EU’s sanction lists.