The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said in an interview with the German newspaper Welt, published on Wednesday, December 29, that Russia’s demands for security guarantees and an end to the expansion of the European Union and NATO to the east are the Russian agenda and contain completely unacceptable conditions.
“Demands on security guarantees and an end to the expansion of the EU and NATO to the east is a purely Russian agenda with completely unacceptable conditions, especially with regard to Ukraine,” he said.
Borrell drew attention to the fact that Moscow for the first time “presented its agenda in writing in the form of this agreement.”
“Only the winners do this: they say that this and that are my conditions,” stressed the head of European diplomacy.
In his opinion, negotiations with Russia should concern not only Ukraine and NATO’s eastward expansion, but “all violations of the treaty since the adoption of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975”.
The day before, during a telephone conversation with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss Borrell said that any discussion of European security should take place in coordination with the EU.
On December 28, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Washington, together with its European allies, is ready to discuss Russia’s security proposals, but some of them will be unacceptable to the US and Europe.
Russian-American talks on strategic stability and security issues will take place on January 10. Thereafter, on November 12, the issue of European security and the situation in Ukraine will be discussed at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council and on January 13 with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry published draft agreements between Russia and the United States and NATO on security guarantees. It follows from the documents that the alliance should refuse to conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine and other states of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.
