Wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 after it crashed into a sunflower field near the village of Rassipnoe, in rebel-held east Ukraine. (AFP-Yonhap)
LONDON (AFP) ― Britain and France are trading accusations of hypocrisy over sanctions against Russia in a row that reveals deeper European divisions on how to react to the MH17 disaster, analysts said Wednesday.
The “Entente Cordiale” entered one of its less cordial phases this week, with Britain slamming France’s 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) warship deal with Moscow, and Paris saying London remains a haven for Russian oligarchs.
The row grew Wednesday when a parliamentary report revealed Britain had granted a series of lucrative arms export licenses to Russia even as it was criticizing its European partners for doing the same.
Experts said the Anglo-French dispute would blow over, but warned it was a symptom of a wider malaise in the European Union as all 28 nations insist the burden of sanctions against Russia must be equally shared.
“We can see tensions in the EU over sanctions, which are inevitable given each country has a different relationship with Russia,” Sarah Lain, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London, told AFP.
“France is really against breaking this contract, it would harm French interests a lot more than Russian interests. Then the British parliamentary report has drawn attention to the fact that France is not the only one in Europe who has a defense relationship with Moscow.”
Despite U.S. pressure to get tough with Moscow over the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine, EU foreign ministers on Tuesday agreed only to slightly widen sanctions and look at a possible arms embargo.
But a wider debate about European inaction has degenerated into a Franco-British slanging match, centered on Paris’s reluctance to scupper the deal to sell two Mistral helicopter warships to Russia.
President Francois Hollande has said delivery of the first warship will go ahead in October as planned but handing over of the second would depend on “Russia’s attitude”.
British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament that “in this country it would be unthinkable to fulfil an order like the one outstanding that the French have” ― as well as criticizing Germany and Italy for Russian arms sales.