Russia hopes to revive relations with EU with Josep Borrell's visit

Russia hopes that relations with European Union could become warmer following upcoming visit of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Vlimir Chizhov, Russia’s permanent representative to EU, said on February 1. Speaking to state-controlled news ncy Sputnik, Russian diplomat stated that Borell’s visit, which is scheduled for Feb 4-6, could pave way for similar meetings in future. Asked if it could also “unfreeze” relations between two, Chizhov clarified Russia’s mutual relation with EU wasn’t “deeply frozen” in first place.  

While both European Union and Russian Federation share several contracts on tre, politics, personal data protection and implementation of JCPOA, ir ties have been severed since 2014. Primary causes include Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, support for rebel groups in eastern Ukraine, policies in neighbourhood, disinformation campaigns and negative internal developments. Putin ministration’s intervention in Syria, Libya and sub-Saharan Africa have also irked bloc promoting it renew several sanctions against Moscow.

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Federica Mogherini, who served as EU’s High Representative of Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy from 2014 till 2019, previously visited Russia in 2017. Since n, re have been several telephonic discussions and virtual conferences, but in-person meeting has been conducted. " latest visit to Russia was paid by Federica Mogherini, Josep Borrell's predecessor in post, back in April 2017. Of course, re have been both phone conversations and meetings on sidelines of different events, but full-scale visits have been paid since," Chizhov recalled speaking to Sputnik.

Russian crisis

Meanwhile, Russia is gripped with both a civil crisis owing to Alexei Navalny's arrest and health crisis pertaining to an increasing caselo of COVID-19. Last week, country’s statistics ncy revealed that population of Russia has shrunk for first time in past 15 years, With pandemic pushing country into crisis, experts attributed decline primarily to COVID-19 induced deaths, low birth rate and increased migration. President Vlimir Putin has long called for measures to increase population and opined that low income was one of main cause for country’s diminishing population.

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