'We're not trying to cripple Russia'

File photo: Reuters.

File photo: Reuters.

Published Dec 19, 2014

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Berlin - Germany denied Friday that European Union sanctions are aimed at crippling the Russian economy and said a tightening of the screws this week as Russia's crisis worsens is a coincidence, and not by design.

It also denied that the collapse of a mega-billion German-Russian gas deal was the result of any political interference from Berlin.

“The idea behind what we are doing on Ukraine and political pressure is not to lay low the Russian economy,” said Sawsan Chebli, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “It's about inducing a change in behaviour.”

She said EU sanctions announced Thursday in Brussels by foreign ministers had been signed off long in advance among lower-level officials and were not new sanctions “in the classical sense,” but a technical move “to close loopholes” in existing EU sanctions.

“It came out at the time of news of the plunge in the rouble. It happened all at once, as a matter of timing, but (the tightening) was not in reaction,” she said.

On Thursday, the world's biggest chemicals company, BASF, announced cancellation of a swap of assets with Russia's gas monopoly. Gazprom was to have acquired big chunks of the German gaspipe network while BASF would have won stakes in Siberian gas fields in the new year.

Instead, the German company's oil unit Wintershall will retain a blocking 50-per-cent stake in German assets that Gazprom half-owns.

“This was a decision at enterprise level. There was no exerting of political influence from the German side on the deal,” German Economy Ministry spokeswoman Julia Modes told reporters in Berlin.

There has been public opposition in Germany to the deal, with critics saying it was a strategic blunder to hand over key domestic assets at a time when Germany is worried by Russia's assertive policies.

Sapa-dpa

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