Martin Schulz: Putin trying to split Europe

Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, thinks that Russia is trying to exert influence on the European Union.

The politician has made this statement in an interview to a German newspaper Die Zeit, Лiга.нет writes.

“By all means we should counter the attempts of Putin to split the EU and expand his influence within the European Union,” he said.

As said by Schulz, the Russian propaganda has already achieved a certain success among some Europeans. The President of the European Parliament offered as an example the French far right party, the National Front, “receiving loans from Russian banks, and some Prime Ministers, who are more or less openly ingratiating themselves with Putin.”

The sanctions policy of the European Union towards Russia, according to Schulz, is successful. “The consolidated position of the EU in the issue of the sanctions – is a great success of foreign policy, which had not been probably seen in such a form before,” he stressed.

The politician has also urged the EU to view the situation in Ukraine as an internal European problem. “The US is unable to solve this problem,” Schulz is convinced. “Hawks, in the first place from the ranks of the Republican party, on the contrary, they are trying to stimulate the crisis. The first step for solving the crisis is to understand it not as Russian-American problem, but as a common European question.” “It would allow Vladimir Putin to save the face as things currently stand, he would be able to say: look, it’s an internal European problem, and I am conducting talks about its resolving with Europe, not the US,” Schultz said.