On the outcomes of the EU summit

Extract from the briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (Moscow, July 2, 2025):

Question: What can you share about the outcomes of the EU summit in Brussels on June 26?

Answer: The June 26 European Council meeting confirmed that despite massive economic and domestic political costs it is incurring, the EU is determined to pursue a path of self-destruction. They call it a “policy directed against Russia,” but, in fact, they engage in self-annihilation.

The statement on Ukraine, which was supposed to be adopted at the meeting, once again failed to reach consensus due to persisting intra-EU differences (as a result, it was approved by just 26 member states). For the same reason, the much-vaunted new package of anti-Russia sanctions announced by the European Commission was not approved, either. Nevertheless, the EU majority continues to brazenly support the continuation of military action by pumping ever more weapons into the Kiev regime. Considering this, the EU’s calls for Russia to “show political will to end the war” sound blatantly disingenuous and absurd.

You cannot, on the one hand, supply weapons without contractual obligations, make and churn out these decisions in front of the cameras, and, on the other hand, call for peace or, as they put it, “show political will to end the war.” In fact, they are the ones who have prolonged this bloodshed.

On one side, the hysteria surrounding the so-called “Russian threat” is being used as a pretext for the accelerated militarisation of the EU to the detriment of the socioeconomic development of its member states.

On the other, it’s self-accusatory. You just can’t keep feeding this nonsense to your own base. They deliberately silence the fact that the “party of war” within the EU is pushing for defence funding through massive borrowing, which will place a heavy burden on future generations of Western Europeans, a rock that will drag them to the bottom. The European Council’s “findings” also included readiness to effectively work towards strengthening NATO’s potential which shows that the EU has finally turned into a dependent entity serving the interests of specific political circles and the defence industry corporations.

Where is the economy, the humanitarian sphere, the idea of a “union” if they are merely serving the bloc? They should switch the abbreviation from EU to EB, because they are less of a union and more of a NATO-aligned bloc. They themselves have effectively said so.

This event was quite telling in terms of the EU’s condition. One thing is what we say, another is what the media say, and a third is how they presented themselves to the whole world revealing the condition to which liberal-globalist elites have effectively reduced them.

I can back it up. The “unity” once justifiably boasted of by those who integrated countries on economic and humanitarian platforms in Europe is, in reality, nowhere to be seen. If you dive deeper, it’s not unity, but a command-administrative system, which some are no longer obeying.

To keep the appearances of “unity,” they resort to twisting arms, barking orders, and abusing judicial power as they crack down on dissenting political forces, as well as outright blackmail. They intimidate their own people and impose total censorship just to be able to maintain an illusion of unity and solidarity, but in fact, to sustain high levels of Russophobia.

Having thrown all their resources into confrontation with Russia, Brussels operates on a “residual principle” in other foreign policy areas. They have nothing to show for it. Hence, the disarray and confusion in the EU on top international priorities. The vagueness of their positions, at times even sheer spinelessness, has become the hallmark of EU diplomacy. For example, the European Council’s “findings” completely ignored causal links behind the armed escalation in the Middle East.

The adopted language once again demonstrated the EU’s inability to coordinate a reasonable stance on the situation in the region, one that would match its ambitions to be a “notable international player.”

With regard to the economy, energy-intensive industries are on the brink of collapse, and some are already beyond it. Competitiveness is severely lacking. The European Commission’s stubbornly imposed energy experiments baffle experts and are rejected by member states, because they lead towards disaster. The situation has reached the point where the militarisation of the economy by pumping borrowed funds into the defence industry complex is presented by Brussels as a cure-all for its financial and economic woes. These are the same people who once criticised non-EU countries for far less. They issued opinions about such things. What are they doing now? Let them criticise themselves. But of course, they won’t.

For some reason, their declarations, findings, and statements have completely lost terms such as “human rights,” “democracy,” “ ethnic minority discrimination,” or “freedom of speech.” These terms are used increasingly less frequently, and these people take no issue with the above developments in Ukraine or Moldova. Why would that be their concern? The answer is because they act as patrons of these countries. Brussels is ready to turn a blind eye to anything that is in the way of not even democracy, but its own geopolitical or geostrategic agenda.