It is essential for European countries to seek constructive cooperation with Russia, Alexander von Bismarck, founder of Bismarck Dialog, a Russian-German public project, told Sputnik.
“We [Europe] need cooperation with Russia. We need to talk together. And when Brussels and the EU can't do this, the countries of the EU have to do this, such as France or Germany,” noted the businessman and public figure.
Bismarck was a guest speaker on "The role of public institutions in smoothing out geopolitical tensions in the modern world" at the symposium on cooperation between BRICS and the EU hosted by Russia’s Sirius Federal Territory.
“We [Germany] are in the best position to talk to the Russians because we have been friends for so many years,” he underscored.
He added that “we had many conversations together, and we need this for the BRICS future.”
“When Germany and Russia come together, it will serve to help Europe,” stressed Bismarck.
Within the framework of the Russian presidency of BRICS, the Sirius federal territory played host to the symposium under the motto "The Role of the State, Science and Society in the Development of Socioeconomic Cooperation between BRICS+ and European Countries and Organizations".
Members of the European Parliament from Greece, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as well as lawmakers from the national legislative bodies of Bulgaria, Germany, Serbia and other countries, were among the invited guests.
The organizers touted it as “an icebreaker event that opens the way to restoring a full-fledged inter-parliamentary and public dialogue between the East and West of Europe, and through it between the political West and the Global South."
"Today we would like to take a big step forward towards mutual understanding and renew a very serious dialogue on the future of the world in which we live," underscored Alexey Gromyko, Director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, during the opening of the symposium.
The first session was devoted to the role of BRICS and European countries in building a more just and mutually beneficial world economic order, while the second focused on the importance of interaction between BRICS and Europe in the context of ongoing large-scale geopolitical upheavals.