Tough new economic sanctions against Russia will hurt Germany’s economy but they are necessary for the sake of peace in Europe, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in a television interview yesterday. The European Union imposed sanctions that took effect on Friday targeting Russia’s banking, defence and energy sectors because of Moscow’s support for pro-Russian separatist rebels battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine.
Germany, the EU’s largest economy, has extensive trade ties with Russia but Chancellor Angela Merkel became a firm advocate of the tougher measures against Moscow after the downing of an airliner last month over an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by the rebels. All 298 people on board the plane were killed.
“What would happen if the European Union didn’t react?” said Gabriel, who is also Germany’s economy minister and head of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), on Germany’s ZDF channel. He also said that economic setbacks as a result of the Ukraine crisis were unavoidable.
