Jose Manuel Barroso, the outgoing President of the European Commission, decided to cow Russia with sanctions again to go down in history as implacable opponent of this post-Soviet country.
Speaking at the G7 meeting in Brussels, Barroso emphasized the necessity to tighten sanctions against Russia saying that the European leaders support him in this matter. "We stand by Ukraine. We want this country to be a viable, independent, democratic and hopefully prosperous country. We cannot accept the kind of behavior that so far has been the behavior of Russia," he told CNBC.
It was the first meeting of leading industrialized economies in 17 years which was not attended by the Russian president. An important point to remember is that Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States voted to eliminate Russia from the G8 due to the “aggression” towards Ukraine. Barroso stated that the sanctions which had been already imposed were “rather effective”. However now, these measures should be tightened up to make the impact stronger.
Russia faced a risk of recession in the first two quarters of 2014. So, the Q1 GDP growth reduced by 0.5% from three months earlier. Economists cut their 2014 estimates projecting the economic slump to turn into stagnation. Russian Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach expects the economy to post growth of 1% for the three months ended April 30.
