Germany will ask the US to release it from sanctions against Russia, the media reported. Professor Alexander Gusev on the radio Sputnik radio suggested whether Washington would agree to this.

The German leadership intends to ask the US to release German companies from participating in anti-Russian sanctions, writes The Wall Street Journal, citing sources.

According to the publication, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz plans to achieve special conditions for German business in the matter of sanctions against Russia during his visit to Washington. In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to raise this issue at a meeting with US President Donald Trump, which will be held in late April.

The publication notes that this approach is being lobbied by German industrial giants, including Siemens, Daimler and Volkswagen, who are doing business in Russia and do not want to become victims of deteriorating relations between Moscow and Washington. According to the leaders of German companies, new sanctions can cost Germany hundreds of millions of euros.

On the radio Sputnik radio, the director of the Institute for Strategic Planning, Doctor of Political Science, Professor Alexander Gusev described how sanctions affect German business.

"Germany is a strategic partner of the US in trade and, naturally, those sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation affect German business, but Germany is also Russia's strategic partner." Most of the trade is related to hydrocarbon raw materials, and primarily to natural gas. % of the total volume of natural gas to Germany comes from the Russian Federation and, naturally, all sanctions imposed by the main moderators from Washington affect the German business.Our trade turnover with the US is relatively small, it does not exceed $ 30 billion, at that time as the volume of Russia's trade with West Germany is about $ 100 billion, so the sanctions that the US has introduced play a serious role, reduce the revenues of the budget of European countries and affect their socio-economic policies, "said Alexander Gusev.

According to him, Germany loses much more from anti-Russian sanctions than other European countries.

"Americans kill two birds with one stone: on the one hand, they weaken the Russian Federation, on the other - the economy of European countries." Therefore, I believe the sanctions will not ease pressure, it will continue to intensify - Americans in this sense absolutely do not lose anything. Germany loses much more than other European countries, given that we have not only a large volume of trade, but also a lot of joint ventures - more than 3500. And the total number of workers and employees in these enterprises exceeds 330 thousand people. Oh, we are interested in normalizing relations with Germany, but their chief patron does not allow them to do this I am convinced that the United States will monitor the Russian-German relations up to a sufficiently serious pressure on the whole German business and political elite "-.. Alexander Gusev said.

In early April, the United States imposed new sanctions against Russia. A number of Russian businessmen and companies under their control fell into the list of restrictive measures. Among them, Oleg Deripaska and his controlled En + Group, GAZ Group, Basic Element and Rusal, Victor Vekselberg and his Renova Group, as well as Kirill Shamalov, Suleiman Kerimov, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and VTB CEO Andrey Kostin.
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Link: https://ria.ru/radio_brief/20180419/1518954958.html