Slovakia – According to Prime Minister Robert Fico, Ukraine is doing less that Russia to implement the Minsk Protocol. Also, Fico insisted for the EU to put an end to sanctions against Moscow.
Slovak Prime Minister added that these sanctions are ineffective and affect more EU countries. “When speaking about the implementation of the Minsk agreement, it needs to be said clearly that both parties are violating it. Actually, if we were to do an inventory of how Ukraine is meeting it, you would have to say Ukraine is meeting it even less than Russia,”said Fico,”It is not true that Ukraine is the good guy and Russia is the bad guy.”
By her side Angela Merkel said it was necessary that Russia and Ukraine shows the political will to reach an agreement. She said the sanctions should only be lifted if the peace agreement is fully implemented.
But Mr Fico said that these sanctions have nothing that could change Russia’s policy, “they affect the EU and Russia but help the United States. I reject them but at the same time I won’t break the unity of the EU on that. ”
Other countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic called for lifting the sanctions.
