Growing Number of EU Lawmakers Ignore Crimea Blockade, Plan to Visit Region

European lawmakers are increasingly making up their own minds about Crimea, in defiance of EU decrees and political blockades, and plan to visit the region to get a taste of what is really happening in the Black Sea peninsula.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Crimea left Ukraine for Russia after a March 2014 referendum, in which over 96 percent of the region’s ethnic-majority Russian population backed the move.

The vote, not recognized by the European Union and their allies, prompted the West to impose sanctions on Russia and Crimea, banning port calls to the ancient Black Sea trade hub and making it difficult, if not impossible, for Crimeans to obtain Schengen visas.

The de-facto blockade of the region with a population of some 2 million is an absurd and frustrating turn of events, the head of a French delegation to Crimea told Sputnik after their visit last week.

A 10-member delegation of French lawmakers traveled to Crimea earlier this month to assess the situation on the ground and meet local officials, hoping to breathe new life into faltering Russian-French relations crippled by EU sanctions on Moscow.

French parliament members reported that life in the Crimean republic was perfectly normal and similar to that in southern France. Delegation head and Foreign Affairs Committee member Thierry Mariani pledged another trip to Crimea in October.

Several other European parties have since promised to follow in the footsteps of the French lawmakers, as confirmed by Crimean authorities. Officials in Simferopol said they had been contacted by other parliamentarians from around the globe who expressed interest in visiting the region.

Among those are Italy’s influential opposition Five Star Movement (M5S) party and north Italy’s regional Lega Nord.

M5S spokesman Manlio Di Stefano said Wednesday their "delegation of peace" intended to do what the government in Rome was incapable of, to defend the nation’s economic interests after its economy sustained a $1.3-billion loss due to export bans to Russia in 2014.

Lega Nord’s deputy leader and senator Sergio Divina said his party awaited a formal invitation from local authorities to dispatch a delegation to Crimea, while a source in the party told RIA Novosti on Thursday that a trip had been planned for this fall.

Media reports indicate that Hungarian lawmakers from the right-wing Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) were considering a visit to Crimea.

A surge in interest toward the Crimean republic comes despite attempts by EU governments to pressure lawmakers to avoid the region, something the French delegation got a taste of after it announced plans to travel to Crimea earlier in July.

Both Paris and Kiev condemned the French visit as a violation of international law, with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry warning that the envoys could be banned from entering Ukraine.