Dominique de Villepin (1953- ), former French PM (2005-07) and Foreign Minister (2002-04), advocate of a sane European policy towards Russia. The Bush stands alone! (Except for his British lapdogs, and they don’t count… they’re from the Anglosphere!)
Business leaders in Europe advocate a pragmatic approach to relations with Russia despite the strident clamour from politicians to “punish” the Russians for their recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Claus Mangold, Chairman of the Eastern committee of the German economy, said, “German business leaders call for more development of economic contact with our most important commercial partner, Russia. The suggestion to oust Russia from the G8 as well as to deny it WTO membership is nothing but populist propaganda. Russia is, and remains, a dynamic and attractive trading partner with Germany”, he emphasised.
Paolo Scaponi, the head of the largest Italian energy concern, ENI, said, “I do not expect negative fallout for my business in Russia nor do I expect such in dealings with Gazprom as a result of the current tensions in ties between Russia and the EU. ENI and Gazprom have been doing business together over the past 50 years and the gas supply by Gazprom has never been interrupted or reduced. Both companies are currently working on the South Stream project to pump Russian gas to Europe”. The previous day, John Brown, the former chief of British Petroleum, said, “Russia shall remain a reliable supplier of oil and gas to Europe”.
Commenting on the mood of Western business circles, Boris Kagarlitskin, Director of the Institute of Globalisation, said, “The situation is quite clear, during the present global economic crisis, Russia serves as a calm harbour. Russia has suffered less than some other advanced nations from the instability on the global financial markets. Hence, it is understandable that a significant part of the Western business community desires to cooperate with Russia more actively. On the whole, the current political crisis over happenings in the Caucasus has nothing in common with the cold war years, because during those years, the war was between two fundamentally different political and social systems, but, Russia is now a part of the world economic system, and globalisation dictates to businessmen new rules of the game”.
“European politicians are gradually coming to terms with the new realities, despite their fretting over Russian actions in the Caucasus. The EU should reopen, as quickly as possible, real dialogue with Russia because both sides want to have normal ties, especially in economic and energy matters”, according to former Prime Minister and ex-Foreign Minister of France, Dominique de Villepin. Even British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who is trying to spearhead the creation of an anti-Russian coalition, admits that isolating Russia will be hugely counter-productive, because of its importance to the world economy.
28 August 2008
Vyacheslav Solovyov
Voice of Russia World Service
http 
/www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=rus&q=81778&cid=20&p=28.08.2008 (in Russian)
