BRUSSELS (Sputnik) —There are no conditions at present to prompt resumption of an EU-Russia summit, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said on Wednesday.
“The channels of communication with Russia should not just be kept, but be used, and that’s what we are doing," Juncker said, at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Brussels.
"But I don’t think the conditions are in place to allow for an EU-Russia summit,” Junker stressed.
Russia and the European Union have held a total of 32 summits since 1997. The latest one, held in January, resulted in a joint statement on combating terrorism.
Following Crimea's reunification with Russia in March 2014, Brussels suspended the practice of regular summits. The European Union then imposed several rounds of anti-Russia economic sanctions, accusing the country of fueling the armed conflict in Ukraine. Russia rejected the accusations and responded with a ban on certain food imports from the bloc.
