DISINFO: European sanctions against Russia cost tens of billion euros to French farmers
SUMMARY
The European sanctions are unfair and counterproductive. The French economy and agriculture have lost tens of billions of euros due to these sanctions.
RESPONSE
Recurrent disinformation message against European sanctions labelling them as unfair and counterproductive and claiming that they hurt Europeans while benefitting Russian economy.
According to research into the effect of sanctions, the cumulative export loss to Russia during 2014-2018 is estimated at EUR 30 billion (about -0.2% of EU’s GDP in 2018), and occurred largely during 2014-2016, as EU exports to Russia recovered in 2017. While these sanctions do affect the EU's economy, the EU-wide impacts of the export losses are estimated at less than 0.2% of total value-added and employment.
The exports on the Russian market of French agricultural products represented only about 3%, so sanctions did not necessarily lead to a loss since new markets were found for many products. Different evaluations of the loss that sanctions imply for the French and European agriculture have been made and vary between 200 million and a few billion but the meaning of those figures should be put in perspective because exports to Russia were reduced also for other reasons and new markets were opened.
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