EU-Russia: Macron asks to "reframe" the relationship because the sanctions are "no longer effective"

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday in Brussels that the EU "needs to reframe very deeply" its relationship with Moscow and that "the sanctions policy" had reached its "limits", towards both Russia and Belarus.

He felt that it was no longer necessary to be "simply reactive" but "to define a short, medium and long term strategy" with Russia.

"Relative effectiveness" of the latest sanctions

"The policy of progressive sanctions on frozen situations is no longer an effective policy," he added during a press briefing after the European Council. Emmanuel Macron was questioned on the impact of the European sanctions adopted against Belarus, after the hijacking of an airliner to arrest an opponent, but also those taken against Moscow to release the opponent Alexei Navalny, to date without result.

"What you are saying is very correct, but you would have in mind what other type of measure?", Retorted the French president to a journalist.

"It is not easy to say, what are we doing behind. In these cases, we start an armed conflict?", He launched in the form of a joke.

However, he recognized "the relative effectiveness of the measures we have been able to take in recent years".

A "moment of truth in our relationship with Russia"

The European Council therefore asked the Commission for a June report on how to respond "to successive provocations" from Russia, he explained.

As for the measures to ban Belarussian airspace, adopted on Tuesday to release opponents, "will that be enough? I don't know how to tell you today," he admitted.

But, he continued, speaking this time about Russia, "I think that we are at a moment of truth in our relationship with Russia, which should lead us to rethink the terms of the tension that we decide to 'install".

"So it is, in my eyes only a step," he concluded of the sanctions.