In a telephone conversation Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Petro Poroshenko have discussed how to support the efforts of the Contact Group to bring about a ceasefire. On Wednesday the Chancellor urged President Vladimir Putin to work towards a truce that would be respected by both sides.
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Angela Merkel’s conversation with the Ukrainian President focused on concrete suggestions as to how to support the Contact Group (which consists of representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in its efforts to bring about a ceasefire.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Poroshenko are extremely concerned about reports that separatists are blocking experts’ access to the crash site of the Malaysian passenger aircraft as a result of continuing fighting. The experts must once again be enabled to continue their work at the crash site, they demanded.
On Wednesday the Chancellor spoke by telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. She urged him to use the influence he has over the pro-Russian separatists to bring about a ceasefire that is respected by both sides.
Angela Merkel stressed that the overarching goal is still to stabilise Ukraine, but she also expressed her concern that the separatists were still receiving new supplies from Russia.
Russia has responded to the EU’s sanctions package, which came into force on 1 August, with a ban on imports of meat, fish, dairy products, fruit and vegetables from all EU states and the USA. "It is not yet clear what impacts this will have in detail on the German food sector. They will, however, be tangible," said Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Christian Schmidt.
The Federal Minister of Agriculture pointed out that Russia’s import ban will harm it most of all. Its decision to boycott western imports will not only have an impact on the German and European economies. It will also hit Russian consumers directly.
Christian Schmidt regretted the fact that Vladimir Putin has taken this "clearly politically motivated step". "Russia’s actions are without doubt a serious challenge to the constructive cooperation we have seen to date between the Russian and German governments in terms of agricultural exports."
In 2013 German agricultural and food exports to Russia were worth about 1.6 billion euros. Ranking alongside the USA, Russia was the second most important trading partner outside the EU, after Switzerland, for German exporters of agricultural produce. Last year German agricultural exports to Russia were already adversely affected by a Russian ban on imports of certain dairy and meat products. German agricultural exports dropped by 14 per cent.