The sanctions against Russia “are very strong and there is no precedent of this magnitude since the Second World War. We have passed a considerable step that is equal to the military aggression of Russia that was unprecedented since the end of the Second World War. “This was stated in an interview with time.news by Pascal Lamy, the former EU Commissioner for Trade (1999 -2004) and the former director general of the WTO (2005-2013) commenting on the war in Ukraine.
“Wishing there would still be some possible sanctions. We have all observed that Gazprombank and Sberbank are currently out of the Swift-related sanctions. The knot around the neck of the Russian economy is not totally tight. We continue to trade oil and gas even if the decisions taken as an example of the shipping companies that have decided to boycott Russian ports are unprecedented “.
The interruption of gas flows, observes Lamy, “is part of the scenarios envisaged and part of the discussions between the EU member states. Surely a decision of this magnitude would require a very complicated adjustment to deal with the situation. A decision. of this type from the EU does not seem impossible especially given the season we are in, at the gates of spring. Russian President Vladimir Putin probably wanted to anticipate the attack but did not want to do it during the Olympics “.
In the past, he notes, “there have always been sanctions as happened in South Africa at the time of apartheid or as those decided by the United States for Cuba but this time the sanctions are even stronger also because we are in another dimension. of violence with this conflict “. A conflict of this size that was hardly foreseeable also because “in the case of Russian President Vladimir Putin there is also a coefficient of irrationality that has prevented many observers from anticipating what would have happened”. Beyond what US intelligence claimed fifteen days before the attack, Lamy underlines, “there were no signs that could suggest a situation of this type. If we look, however, at 20-30 years old someone had warned that the fall of the Berlin wall would have posed geopolitical problems. Problems that did not arrive immediately but that arrived forty years later. We are facing a sort of reverse Berino wall “.
Despite what happened in Georgia, Crimea and Dombass, Putin “actually wanted and got the surprise effect he was planning even though I’m not sure if things are happening exactly as he planned at this stage.“Now, observes Lamy,” we are in a situation in which the balance of power is being established and everyone tries to exploit their own advantages: Putin tries to strangle Ukraine with his military power while the EU with his strength economy seeks to strangle the Russian economy to bring Putin to the negotiating table “.
Lamy does not balance the fact that the Russian president can still act rationally to avoid a subsequent escalation of the situation. “The speech a few days ago before the attack leaves me with doubts about the possibility that he could have rational reasoning again. I still think that if we approach the area of the use of nuclear weapons, his generals, even if I do not have the certainty, they could be more rational and reasonable. The generals make extremely rational calculations. I think that the Russian military from this point of view does not react like oligarchs “.
China, according to Lamy, can play a mediator role in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine but will not do so against its interests. Geopolitically, he stresses, “China is in a position to intervene to push the Russian president, Valdimir Putin to return to reason, even if at this moment combining the words reason and Putin seem like an adventurous bet”. For the former director general of the WTO, “there is an open window. Obviously it would be a little more open if we had not arrived at this kind of acute rivalry between China and the United States. It is possible, in fact, that China will decide to focus on the rivalry with the United States and vice versa but there is also a possibility that the Chinese leadership will intervene in this situation: in a week we have already seen the Chinese diplomatic position change even though it abstained from the United Nations “.
For China, Lamy underlines, “there is an opportunity to reshape the world geopolitical map that is currently dominated by an economic, strategic, technological and ideological rivalry between China and the US”. In any case, she notes, “I think the US position that aims to ostracize China is a strategic mistake. It risks making it even more dangerous”.
“The European Union was united and the Europeans, which rarely happens, were quick to come to an agreement“by launching the sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, explains Lamy, underlining that” these were complicated negotiations. If we had stayed with the initial proposals we would not have reached where we are today. “With the Next Generation Eu and now with the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine” perhaps we are at a European turning point.
It is not the first time that the EU has shown itself to be united. “It happened in 2008, it happened during the Trump administration with the decisions on trade. It also happened with Covid. For ten years – observes Lamy – the EU has acted concretely and ideologically to a series of aggressions and crises that have harmed and threatened Europeans. The idea of the need to protect ourselves a little better is growing stronger in the EU. This is what is happening. We saw it with the ‘Hamiltonian moment’ of the Next Generation Eu. of very important events that bring us closer to that goal of European power that makes some of us dream “, he underlines.
In recent years, Germany has often been forced to ‘bow its head’ to allow a European consensus to be reached. “In 2008 there was the ‘Whatever it takes’ which overcame the German resistance, then there was the strengthening of trade policies during the US administration wanted by France and finally the Next Generation Eu that had been from always a German taboo. Now Germany has decided one morning to double its military budget, which was not planned. ” In short, according to the former EU Commissioner “progress is being made in European integration. With the Next Generation Eu and now with the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine, perhaps we are at a turning point”.
The war in Ukraine, Lamy points out, “it is an event that adds to the turmoil in an economic situation that was already perturbed by inflation, the difficulties related to the exit from the covid emergency and the repercussions on procurement and logistics. There is no doubt that we will lose growth. We were up 4% after 5.5% last year. We will lose at least half a point of growth to which we must add the effects linked to inflation and which can be cumulative. In short, there will be a major shock and the Europeans will be on the front line. ”
“The question on the table in Brussels is how to spread this shock across its breadth and geography. The repercussions will be very heterogeneous and the German economy will be at the forefront and I’m not sure it’s a good thing to leave Germany alone to manage. such a strong shock “, underlines Lamy, recalling how at the time of reunification he agreed with the former president of the EU Commission, Jacques Delors” who had proposed a European fund to spread the economic cost of German reunification. The former German chancellor Helmut Kohl refused but it was a mistake: we all paid with interest rates and it was not good for our economy. ”
Germany, observes the former director general of the WTO, “is the country that will have the strongest repercussions from the crisis. Berlin exports 5-6 times more than France”. For Lamy “it is no coincidence that with an interdependence as low as that of the Russian economy at the global level we found ourselves in this situation of military aggression against Ukraine. It is not a coincidence”.