WASHINGTON, October 3 (RIA Novosti) – The European Union still needs to work on following an independent foreign policy course, which would not be influenced by the United States, EU-based journalist and author George Tzogopoulos told RIA Novosti Friday.
"We can see again that the EU has a long way to go in order to follow its own foreign policy successfully," Tzogopoulos said, adding that "The US targets Russia while the EU prefers a more moderate approach and subsequently the former puts pressure on the latter."
"More importantly, the EU is peace-loving and hopes that [the Ukrainian] crisis can be solved in a diplomatic way. The current tensions with Russia are not encouraging," Tzogopoulos noted.
On Thursday, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland urged EU countries to persist with the sanctions regime targeting Russia. Meanwhile US Vice President Joe Biden made a statement on the same day at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government saying that the United States and US President Barack Obama in particular, pressured the European Union to impose sanctions against Russia.
Over the past few months, the United States has introduced several rounds of economic sanctions against Russia, over its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, with the EU and US allies later following in Washington's footsteps and drawing up their own blacklists.
Russian politicians have repeatedly referred to the language of sanctions as "counterproductive," saying that such measures "threaten international peace and stability". Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that the sanctions are ineffective and inflict certain damage on those who use the measure.
