Reuters :
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, European Union and NATO leaders slam Russia and urge countries to pull back from trade with Moscow.
The European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen says Moscow’s invasion ‘must fail’ while NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg urges an end to reliance on Russian gas.
Europe needs to seek talks with Russia over the possibility of reviving the exports of wheat and other food supplies out of Ukraine in order to prevent a global food crisis, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says.
“It can’t be in Russia’s interests that because of Russia people are dying of hunger in the world,” von der Leyen told the Reuters news agency at the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos.
“Therefore I think we should first of all look at the dialogue with Russia, whether there is not an agreement that this wheat gets out of Ukraine.”
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has called for talks with Moscow on unlocking wheat exports that are trapped in Ukraine as a result of a Russian sea blockade.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week accused Russia of using food as a weapon by holding “hostage” supplies for not just Ukrainians, but also millions of people around the world. Moscow rejects this allegation.
“The most important (thing) is to deblock the Black Sea. This is a call on Russia,” von der Leyen told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
Western countries must not trade security for economic profit, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Tuesday, referring to debates over the use of Chinese technology in 5G networks and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for Russian gas.
“We must recognise that our economic choices have consequences for our security. Freedom is more important than free trade, the protection of our values is more important than profit,” Stoltenberg told business leaders at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.
“I am not arguing against trade with China, but I am saying that for instance, the control over 5G networks is of vital security importance,” he said.
“We cannot say that in the interest of profits and free trade we just open up those networks also for suppliers that actually are not reliable when it comes to our security,” Stoltenberg added.
On the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, designed to double the flow of Russian gas through the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, he spoke of a lesson learned.
Berlin halted the project when Russia formally recognised two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine as independent, days before sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in what Moscow describes as a “special military operation”.
Stoltenberg said free trade had brought a lot of prosperity and wealth, but at a price.
“Because some of this trade, some of this interaction with authoritarian regimes, is undermining our security – and then we have to choose security instead of vulnerability and over-reliance on authoritarian regimes,” he said.
“So this idea that we should have free trade in natural gas, meaning we can buy as much gas from Russia as we want, that’s wrong, it’s dangerous,” Stoltenberg warned.
“It provides Russia with a tool to intimidate and to use against us, and that has been clearly demonstrated now, I regret to say.”
The United States has long pressed European and other countries to exclude Chinese technology from 5G networks.
Washington sees Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei HWT.UL as an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s global surveillance machinery.
Huawei, which is playing a leading role as the telecoms world gears up for next generation wireless technology, has repeatedly denied spying for the Chinese state.
