MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) – Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said Wednesday that EU sanctions against Russia could lead to an economic crisis in Finland.
“We are talking about a potential economic crisis. Consequences of the sanctions could be significant,” Stubb told Yle, Finland's national public-broadcasting company.
It is difficult to estimate the impact of the sanctions now, but Finland’s Finance Ministry forecasts that if the Russian economy shrinks by three percent, the effect on the Finnish economy will be 0.5 percent, the prime minister said.
“We are talking about hundreds of millions, maybe billions in the long term,” Stubb added.
Last week, the European Union and the United States imposed a new round of sanctions targeting the financial, energy and defense sectors of the Russian economy in response to the Ukrainian crisis. Moscow has repeatedly called the measures counterproductive and stressed that Russia is not involved in the Ukrainian conflict.
