BRUSSELS, June 4. /TASS/. Fernand Kartheiser, a European Parliament member who represents Luxembourg, has said that a trip to Moscow left him with the impression that Russia is not interested in an arms race with Europe.
"They have the means to go into it financially and industrially, but I think that they are absolutely not interested in going that way," he pointed out in an interview with the Euractiv news website. "I don't see this [idea of] Russian expansionism, a wish to reconstitute the Soviet Union or to attack the whole of Western Europe and settle in France or Spain," the lawmaker added.
Kartheiser described Russia’s approach to resolving the conflict in Ukraine as "strategic patience." "The concept of ‘strategic patience’ is not an argument for more killing." "It was them saying, ‘we can wait until the West is ready to talk to us and to find a solution’," he explained.
Kartheiser, who heads Luxembourg’s right-wing Alternative Democratic Reform Party, was elected to the European Parliament in 2024. He has consistently called for normalizing relations between the European Union and Russia.
Kartheiser visited Moscow on May 25-28 at the invitation of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament). He held meetings with Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Grigory Karasin, chairman of the Federation Council Committee (upper house of parliament) on Foreign Affairs, and Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko.
After his trip to Moscow, the leaders of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) faction in the European Parliament said they would expel Kartheiser from their ranks. According to Euractiv, it could happen as early as today. The politician himself noted in an interview with TASS that he was ready to face repression from Brussels.