The former president of the European Commission, Durão Barroso, condemned on Tuesday the suspension of the grain agreement announced by Russia on Monday, warning that the price to be paid by the most vulnerable “is very serious” and hoped that Moscow would reverse its position.
Speaking on the sidelines of the 6th Eurafrican Forum, which he chairs, and which began this Tuesday in Nova SBE, in Carcavelos (Cascais municipality), Durão Barroso said that Moscow’s decision “is absolutely reprehensible”, after Moscow left the Black Sea Grains Initiative, taken up by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations, claiming that their demands had not been met.
“To be making African countries and not just African countries, developing countries, pay a very high price for a problem that they did not create, is very serious,” said the former head of the European Commission, former Portuguese Prime Minister and who was non-executive chairman of the financial group Golden Sachs, to which he remains linked, in part of an interview with Lusa that will be released in full on Wednesday.
Durão Barroso expressed the wish that the suspension of the agreement, which allowed the export of Ukrainian cereals through the Black Sea, be reversed in the midst of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, a possibility that the Kremlin keeps open if its conditions are accepted. . .
“I know that there is great pressure from some countries, not only from Western countries,” he commented, asking that “the voice of the most affected countries be heard, because – it is that old expression in several languages -, when there is a great problem among the great, it is the little ones who suffer”.
The also president of the Global Alliance for Vaccines (GAVI), created in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, mentioned the case of African countries, “that have nothing to do with this war or are not directly involved ” and that “there are those who suffer the consequences of this brutal way”.
Durão Barroso recalled that the initiative for the war came from Moscow and that the consequences of the conflict derive from the “illegal action that was the invasion of Russia from Ukraine”, in which “there is an aggressor and a victim” and that is what , he stressed, it is important to explain it, because “sometimes there may be a tendency in the so-called ‘global south’ to place all the responsibility on the Europeans or on Europe”.
“No,” he insisted, “the responsibility lies with those who launched this war and this aggression.”
Russia opposed the extension of the agreement while its demands on the trade of its own agricultural products are not met, hampered by the sanctions on its banks, and denounced the extension of the understanding.
The agreement on Ukrainian grains allowed, despite the ongoing war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 22, 2022, to place more than 30 million tons of grain and agricultural products on the market.
In reaction, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky argued that “even without Russia, everything must be done to use this corridor” in the Black Sea.
The suspension prompted comments from UN Secretary General António Guterres warning that hundreds of millions of people will pay for Russia’s decision to break the deal.
Turkey’s president said, in turn, that he believed that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, “wants to keep” the agreement.
“We are going to take steps in that direction, with a call to Putin, without waiting for August,” he declared.
Moscow’s backtracking on the expansion of the Black Sea Grains Initiative has drawn strong criticism from some of Kiev’s main allies, such as the European Commission, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Germany and Portugal, warning in addition to its impact on millions of people. residents in vulnerable countries.
Source: TSF
