madam president many of us in this house see russia as part of the great family of european nations and had hoped that after the fall of the berlin wall we would see russia moving closer to the european union
sadly that has not been the case
the current russian leadership has chosen its own path and it is one which causes great distress to those of us who wish to see freedom and democracy and the rule of law for the russian people
the commissioner here today has more experience than most of us in dealing with russia and no doubt will have his own experience there but i hope that the commission will put pressure on the high representative to adopt a new policy towards any country whose leaders constantly flout the values we hold dear
let us talk to them and engage with them on trade as we need to
let us endeavour to discuss with them human rights as we should but let us not allow their leaders to launder their money through europe's banking systems to educate their children in our schools or universities or to take holidays in our holiday resorts
if we applied that equally to all authoritarian leaders across the world we would start moving towards what one could call an ethical foreign policy
