“Russia won a big victory and dealt a blow to the EU economy”
In the five years of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the European Union in 2014, Moscow has not changed its policy.
Italian billionaire Vincenzo Trani, vice-president of the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who holds a similar post in the Association of Italian Entrepreneurs, told Komsomolskaya Pravda about this.
“Five years have proved that these sanctions have not achieved any result. Russia behaves as it sees fit. And for European exporters, they turned into serious losses. There is a lot of research on this topic, but the EU authorities are doing everything in their power to keep the numbers secret,” Trani said.
According to him, the blow was particularly severe for European companies that exported to Russia, resulting, for example, in the closure of farms that exported grapes from the Puia region of Italy.
“And sanctions forced Russia to develop its economy faster. We are seeing very strong growth in agriculture and the food industry. And we see that a lot of Italian entrepreneurs, who used to be exporters, moved to Russia and created here the production of goods that they used to bring,” the businessman noted.
He also drew attention to the fact that now in the Russian Federation there are a lot of Italian products that were previously “Made in Italy” and have become “Made with Italy”.
"This is a major victory for Russia and a blow to the EU economy. But unfortunately, those who decide to continue sanctions are under pressure from America . Therefore, I don't believe that any EU countries will abandon sanctions. Greece has repeatedly said it suffers from them, as have Italy, Cyprus , the Netherlands ... But when it came time to vote, everyone always voted in favor. Europe is hostage to the US political vision, and this is, of course, a great shame because America doesn't suffer from these sanctions, while Europe does," Trani said.
Russia scored a major victory and dealt a blow to the EU economy.