MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) -The participants of the EU Summit have asked the European Commission to prepare proposals for new economic sanctions against Russia within one week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday.
“We said that should there be a further escalation as we had actually experienced, we may need to take additional decisions. We mandated the Commission to prepare the grounds for measures that can be taken and they have to decide on that within a week,” Angela Merkel told journalists after the special meeting of European Council.
However, the decision on sanctions will not affect the trilateral gas talks between the European Union, Russia and Ukraine. “We will irrespective of that also address questions related to gas,” said Merkel, noticing that there has been progress on gas talks since the meeting in Minsk.
The European Union and the United States have imposed several rounds of economic sanctions against Moscow, over Russia’s alleged participation in Ukrainian conflict.
Russia has responded to Western sanctions by banning food imports from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and Norway.
Moscow has repeatedly referred to the sanctions as counterproductive.
