Athens' flirting with Moscow has caused anger and stupefactionamong Greece's European allies, particularly after the government, on its first day in office, issued a public rebuke to the EU over a joint statement regarding sanctions on Russia.
Greece's government disagrees with sanctions against Russia, and wants to boost trade ties with the country, said Prime Minister AlexisTsipras,who will go on avisit to Moscow tomorrow.Tsipras is due to visit Moscow on April 8 for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin but the Greek government has stressed it is not seeking funding from the Kremlin.
France and Germany tried to downplayTsipras' visit to Moscow.
"European countries can go to Moscow without it posing a problem to Europe," French President Francois Hollande said las week during a visit to Berlin.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel echoed his sentiment.
"I will just say that we were already in Moscow and are members of the EU nonetheless," she said.
AsGreeceseeks to fill its state coffers, the Russian ambassador to Athens recently told Kathimerini newspaper that Moscow would examine any loan request fromGreece, were it to be made.
Asked about possible Russian financial assistance to Greece, the EU envoy to Moscow, Vygaudas Usackas, said that "we will welcome it, if this financial aid is transparent and open, if it helps the economic and financial stabilization of Greece, something that the EU has been doing."
Greece has been engaged in tortuous negotiations with Greece's creditors from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund over unlocking vital remaining bailout funds that will prevent a default. The country has been dependent on rescue loans from other eurozone countries and the IMF since 2010.
"There shouldn't be a hope that Russia could somehow drive a wedge between the EU nations," Usackas said in an interview with Govorit Moskva radio.
Lastweek, speaking in an interview with Russia's Tass news agency,Tsiprassaid he considers EU sanctions to be a "road to nowhere" and that the reciprocal embargo Russia has imposed on food from the European Union has "seriously damaged" his country's economy.
The U.S. and the EU imposed crippling economic sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and support for an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Moscow retaliated by banning most Western food imports — an action that has hurt Greek agricultural exports at a time when the bailed-out country has been struggling through a deep financial crisis.
Since being elected in January,Tsipras' coalition government between his radical left Syriza party and a small right-wing nationalist party has advocated warmer ties with Russia, and has criticized past Greek governments for following the EU line regarding Moscow too closely.
"Over the past years a blow was dealt to (Greek-Russian) relations as the previous governments in my country had not done what they could have done to avoid this senseless sanctions policy, in my opinion, amid tensions in Ukraine," Tass quotedTsiprasas saying in the interview.
Speaking about the sanctions, Tsipras said: "An economic war as a prolongation of an actual war is adead-end alley policy”.
"The result of this is the embargo also on the Greek agricultural goods has seriously damaged the Greek economy," he said.
Asked about Europe’s new "security architecture" (a term which for the Russians includes NATO and the missile shield the US is installing in Eastern Europe), Tsipras also said:
"I asked the question many times and nobody could give me an answer. In my view, Europe’s new "security architecture” should include Russia."
Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis also visited Moscow, where he met with his Russian counterpart and the head of natural gas company Gazprom.
Cf. also:
Tsipras: "Europe’s "security architecture” should include Russia
http://www.neurope.eu/article/eu-capitals-try-downplay-tsipras-visit-moscow