"Sanctions are the only "sticks" the EU can use to force Russia to withdraw from the Crimea," Michael Geary, a professor with Maastricht University, told Sputnik Friday.
"No one will go to war over the issue, so in the twenty-first century, sanctions are the only weapons," Geary explained.
According to the ICM poll, which covered over 3,000 people in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France and was conducted in December, 40 percent of Europeans say anti-Russian sanctions should stay in place, while 29 percent of the respondents say they should be lifted.
Francesco Giumelli, professor of the University of Groningen, told Sputnik Friday that sanctions are not profitable to anyone, though they remain a useful tool, as Russia and the European Union consider them worth the cost.
"There is a problem between the European Union and Russia at the moment. The cost is still contained compared to the seriousness of the issue, because Europeans are accusing Russia of violating on of the most important principles of the international law. And if the accusation is right, then the cost is still contained compared to the importance of the dispute," Giumelli explained.
"I think the crisis now is in a very different point, compared to when the sanctions were imposed. In a way they are helpful," Giumelli said stressing that at the same time many Russians and Europeans are losing money because of the sanctions.
According to the ICM poll, 54 percent of Germans say that Western anti-Russia sanctions have negatively affected the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, while 40 percent of respondents in the United Kingdom said that sanctions have had a positive effect. At the same time in France, 37 percent claimed that sanctions have played no role whatsoever.
"The problem is that linking the first sanctions directly to Crimea means, logically, that it will be impossible for the west to lift them without a change in the status of Crimea, and I don't think anyone seriously expected that, even at the outset," Mary Dejevsky, a columnist for The Independent and The Guardian, told Sputnik Friday.
She pointed out that either the initial sanctions stay in place on a more or less permanent basis, or the West lifts them and "in so doing admits that they have achieved nothing".
"There are certainly some issues…where the EU has been on the receiving end of instructions from Washington; more of a passive spectator rather than a willing participant," Geary told Sputnik.
"The EU's foreign policy is made up of 28 national policy interests and it is not as developed as Washington's. The EU is, equally, slow to respond to international events and even slower to produce solutions," Geary added.
He emphasized that a more robust EU foreign policy is needed, but this is unlikely to happen any time soon, due to the block's inter-governmental nature of decision-making.
Francesco Giumelli agreed that there has been a discussion between Brussels and Washington on the issue of sanctions, but the crash of the Malaysian Boeing changed the situation, forcing the European Union to act on its own.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine in July, killing all 298 people on board. The cause of the crash is still unclear, but Kiev has accused independence fighters in the southeast of shooting the plane down. They, in turn, claim they do not have the technology for shooting down a plane flying that high.
Apart from the issue of Crimea, one of the reasons the West has given for having imposed sanctions against Russia was the alleged support Moscow is rendering independence fighters in Ukraine. The claim has not been supported with any factual evidence.
