STRASBOURG (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — The European Union's sanctions against Russia have failed to yield any results while only complicating the situation, a spokesman for Cyprus’s Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) told Sputnik on Monday.
Earlier in the day, the European Union issued a six-month extension of its anti-Russia sanctions, due to expire on Tuesday.
"We still oppose such a policy and we think this is not getting any results, on the contrary it makes things more complicated," George Loukaides said.
He previously voiced this position to Sputnik in April when he argued that the EU and US intervention in Ukraine had triggered the crisis that is now in its second year.
The 28-member bloc, along with the United States, accuses Russia of direct involvement in the military standoff between Kiev-led government forces and pro-independence militia in parts of the Donbass region. Moscow maintains that it plays no part in the conflict, countering that the Western sanctions regime is counterproductive.
A recent report by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research estimates that the European Union’s restrictive measures have in fact cost its 28-member states approximately $114 billion in lost earnings and up to two million jobs.
