"You can be tough if it suits you, you can be soft, if it suits you. But you cannot be tough if it brings you nothing but harm. Isolating Russia is harmful," Prodi said in an interview published Tuesday in an influential Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The prominent European politician stressed that Ukrainian membership in NATO would create "irreversible tensions."
Commenting on the latest developments in Europe, in particular, the situation in Greece and the results of the elections in Poland and Spain, Prodi said that "Europe no longer has any policies or ideas, it only has rules and arithmetic. But one cannot rule only with the help of arithmetic."
Prodi said that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had unveiled an investment plan nine months ago, however, no progress had been achieved yet.
According to Prodi, one of the main challenges the EU is currently facing is that the "center of power has shifted from the [European] Commission to the countries, above all, to Germany." However, in his opinion, Germany alone cannot be responsible for the future of the European Union.
"There is no policy that is an alternative to Berlin's policy. We were the Union of minorities, but today, we have become a Europe of one course — the German. I have long hoped that France, Spain and Italy would work out a common line, but they could not do it," the politician said.
