00:00That deal between the Trump administration and the Russian president to lift sanctions on Russian
00:06diesel continues to create a political storm in Brussels. A number of members of the European
00:12Parliament, more than 100 MEPs, sent a letter to European leaders calling for the EU to stay firm
00:18when it comes to supporting Ukraine, but also impose a full embargo on Russian oil and gas.
00:24One of the MEPs who joined that petition is now with us. He is Rikar Kals. He comes from Latvia.
00:32And, sir, that letter there, you say the European Union needs to stay firm on its support to Ukraine
00:38and also impose an embargo on Russian energy. Why do this now? Because it seems to me the deal is
00:45done.
00:45Trump is going ahead.
00:48Well, first of all, Trump is doing what he is doing for whatever reasons he finds its fit.
00:54But for us Europeans, obviously, why we are asking leaders to do certain things is because
01:01Moscow is counting on Europe to tire and resume business. So, therefore, we are asking EU leaders
01:08to rule that out, keep Russian energy out, complete the oil and gas embargo and maintain support for
01:15Ukraine. That is the basic message that we are sending for the leaders gathering here in Brussels.
01:22And that letter is very heavily worded. But you just said there, President Trump,
01:27for whatever reason, has decided to go ahead with this deal. But why do you think that is?
01:33Again, it's going to be pure speculation. I think there's a lot of experts following the Trump's
01:38administration, different dealings internally. I can assume that not long ago, we saw the sanctions
01:46being imposed on Lukoil and Rosnyap, and then the attempts to acquire the international Lukoil assets
01:56under the U.S., let's say, the ownership, not maybe the governments, but, you know, the business owners.
02:03And imagine Ukraine is conducting the long range sanctions on Russia, hitting the refineries.
02:13And imagine you complete that deal, and you get almost an empty shell, a Lukoil company that cannot
02:19have any oil being delivered and sold globally. So, again, it's my subjective, but there will be
02:26definitely a lot of eyes on what is behind those decisions. Obviously, it's a very, very bad signal.
02:34It is something that encourages Kutzen to be more bold. That actually, what I mentioned,
02:39that he seems that there is a fatigue. And I have heard a lot of leaders saying and talking that,
02:48well, there is in the societies Ukrainian fatigue. This is wrong. What we should be talking about is
02:53Russian fatigue. We are tired of Russia, and we should do everything to isolate it for any possible
03:01revenues from the fossil fuels, from technology that they're acquiring. And to tell you honestly,
03:08Trump wasn't wrong, saying that we've been giving revenues to Russia since 2022. I just looked up
03:18the data, and it's alarming. It's screaming. It's almost 200 billion euros we have paid for gas,
03:26for oil, for the duration of four years. This is almost, I mean, the second place country who is
03:31putting that much revenue in the Kremlin's money chest is China. And we call China more and more
03:39as an enabler of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. And imagine, we're somewhat becoming
03:45enablers of that. And that is really unacceptable. This is immoral from our point of view.
03:54Look, your language here is very strong. You say this is unacceptable, and it's immoral. But I want
03:58to pick up on the point that you yourself brought up. The president of the US and the US administration
04:04has also said there's a lot of political posturing from the Europeans, because they see those numbers,
04:10and there is still Russian energy entering the European Union. Is this not a case of,
04:15well, the EU is also being quite cynical here? Well, unfortunately, what I can say,
04:21we have made the decisions. Both the council and the parliament agreed to phase out Russian gas.
04:27It comes into force starting January 1st, 2027, immediately for short-term agreements. And then by
04:34autumn 2027, it's total phase-out. Obviously, it has taken time. And obviously, there are member states
04:41who have used this time frame to still purchase Russian gas. And this year alone, it's almost
04:508 billion euros that have been paid into Russia's money chest. And obviously, a phase-out on paper
04:59still leaves a substantial revenue stream in practice. But I think this is a total phase-out that
05:05we're facing next year. And we've been calling, we've been promised by the commission, Commissioner
05:10Jorgensen, that following suit, the gas phase-out, the commission will submit to parliament and council
05:17a proposal to phase out Russian oil and petrochemicals. That hasn't been delivered. That
05:24promise was kept, let's wait out for the elections in Hungary. Nothing happened. Then the excuse was,
05:31well, the things that are developing in the Hormuz Strait. We can always find the excuse not to do
05:36something. But I think it's not the time. We need to deliver.
05:41Well, and they have. They have for three years now. But as a final point, because you've sent this
05:46letter, more than 100 MEPs sending this letter saying, we need to stay firm on Ukraine, but also
05:51impose this full embargo. You know very well there's still Russian energy making its way into the European
05:56Union. What do you want to see just briefly coming out of this European summit? We see that President
06:01Zelensky has just entered this building specifically on paper just shortly. Well, very shortly, obviously,
06:07to deliver, first of all, the gas phase-out and already to push for the phase-out of Russian oil
06:13and petrochemicals. On top of that, to really hear what the Baltic prime ministers have submitted to
06:19also ban the Russian grain, Ukrainian grain going through Russia into the global markets. That's another
06:27area and to really seize any trade. We are still trading with Russia. Last year alone, 27 billion
06:34in different goods. We are trading. We are trading with the aggressor. So therefore, we are losing
06:38internationally the moral ground when we are lecturing someone else that they are doing one or another
06:44thing that we don't like. Well, sir, to that point, thank you so much for joining us on Euronews.
