EU Leadership Realizing Need to Lift Anti-Russia Sanctions

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova — The political elite of the European Union along with the business heads are coming to the conclusion that the anti-Russia sanctions should be lifted, the president of the Banca Intesa, Russian branch of the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo Group, told Sputnik.

"In the EU there has been a growing consensus for the past two weeks at top decision-making levels on the need to search for a mechanism of getting out of this situation," Antonio Fallico said, adding that he did not know if the sanctions, which expire in January 2016, would remain in place or be lifted.

Fallico said that progress made during Normandy talks in Paris earlier this month contributed to the general positive mood within the EU leaders regarding the sanctions policy.

The Banca Intesa president said the retaliation sanctions Moscow had imposed on several EU states were seriously affecting not only agricultural deliveries in Italy and the high-tech sphere, but also the financial system, decreasing the bilateral trade by 36 percent over the past year.

On October 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Paris to discuss the Ukraine crisis and the implementation of the Minsk deals. Even though no new agreements were signed, the talks set a positive tone, according to Merkel.

The European Union, the United States and their allies imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Moscow in 2014 over Russia's alleged participation in Ukraine’s conflict. Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations.