Matviyenko to remind French Senate president of economic implications of sanctions
MOSCOW. Aug 27 (Interfax) - Russian Federation Council Chair Valentina Matviyenko intends to remind the French Senate president of the implications of the sanctions against Russia for European countries' economies in a telephone conversation on Thursday.
"I will have a telephone conversation today with my counterpart, the president of the French Senate. I will once again remind him of the statistics, according to which trade between Russia and France declined by more than 17% last year and by another 45% from January to May 2015. Who is interested in this? Residents of France? French businesses? Russia?" Matviyenko said when taking questions from journalists on Thursday.
"It's easy from across the ocean to put pressure on and put Europe literally on its knees in an already problematic economic situation," she said.
"We do not favor confrontation and do not initiate a subject that could cause more tension," she said.
"On the contrary, we say that we have a very vast positive agenda with the European Union countries, the EU as a whole and the U.S. We keep saying that it's necessary to build constructive interaction and do away with the Cold War mentality. It's not us who seek the deterioration of the situation," she said.
