6
Jul
2022
Watch
The relations of the Russian government and diplomatic network with parties of extremist, populist, anti-European and certain other European political parties in the context of the war (debate)
Madam President, Russia has used its actors within the EU institutions to try to legitimise its positions, to undermine sanctions policy and prevent international isolation. Now one way of Russian influence over the past years is through propagating the so—called ‘traditional values’. And ‘traditional values’ mean that women’s emancipation is wrong, and rights of sexual minorities should not be realised. But these restrictive and reactionary values that Russia tried so hard to push have been rejected time and again, also by our Eastern Partner countries, not least by Ukraine, that just recently ratified the Istanbul Convention on gender—based violence. Russia has, of course, labelled this as ‘anti—family’, claiming Europe and the West are degenerated regions, whereas Russia is the cradle of civilisation with a great future. We, of course, have these currents represented in the EU as well in the form of Orbán’s Hungary and others. We need to be quite strict on transparency and tighter rules on political funding, the funding of European political parties, because they are a challenge to these influences.