MOSCOW, 16 October 2021, (TON): The plans declared by the European Union in the Arctic are an open attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the states represented in the region, including Russia, said Vladimir Poletaev, a member of the Federation Council Comm-ission for the Protection of State Sovereignty.

The European Commission has previously unveiled the EU’s strategy for the Arctic. The document, among other things, fixes the demand of Brussels to establish a complete ban on the production of coal, oil and gas in the Arctic and neighboring regions and criticizes Russia’s actions to strengthen the infrastructure to ensure its security in the Arctic region.

Poletaev wrote in a telegram -channel commission “the European Union as a political union has no right to dictate to the countries represented in the region how to act on their own territory. There is an Arctic Council, where three EU member states are represented, and whose interests are taken into account when developing cosine solutions,”

He noted that “the EU’s statements on the right to determine the common policy of the countries of the Arctic region can not be perceived otherwise as an attempt to encroach on the sovereignty of independent states.”