Recurring pro-Kremlin misleading narrative about the West as Russophobic https://euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?text=&disinfo_issue=&disinfo_keywords%5B%5D=77113&date= The EU's most recent policy vis-a-vis Russia has been formulated in 2016 in the Five Guiding Principles that include selective engagement with Russia on issues like migration, counter-terrorism, or climate change; or support for Russia's civil society. In the Foreign Affairs Council 16 April 2018, all the EU Foreign Ministers saw as a key issue to increase EU:s support for Russian citizens, civil society, human rights defenders, people to people contacts, especially with a focus on the youth of the Russian Federation. In practise this means for example the Erasmus+ programme. Russian students and researchers are among the first - if not the first - of third countries benefiting from the Erasmus+ programme. It is something the EU wants to increase to make sure that links between the people are not only maintained but also increased. eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/42996/remarks-hrvp-mogherini-press-conference-following-foreign-affairs-council_en There was in fact a clear record of strong cooperation between the EU and Russia, dating back to 1994, when the two sides negotiated a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. Russia was identified as a strategic partner for the EU, and was the only country with which the EU held summits not once, but twice a year. A new EU-Russia agreement was being negotiated up until 2014, at which point talks were unfortunately suspended due to Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict. Negotiations were also in train on visa facilitation. There was also cooperation between the EU and Russia on a number of foreign policy issues, some of which continues to this day. The EU and its Member States have maintained a clear policy of reaching out to Russian society and youth, mainly through the Erasmus+ student exchange programme and other people to people contacts. NATO consistently worked hard to build a cooperative relationship with Russia since the early 1990s, through the Partnership for Peace and creation of a NATO-Russia Council, and specific cooperation in the Western Balkans on and issues like counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism. In fact, as NATO points out, no other NATO partner has been offered a comparable relationship, nor a similarly comprehensive institutional framework: http://bit.ly/2e0TZnG. In 1997, Russia was invited to join the G7 group of major advanced economies in the world, thus forming the G8. (At the time, Russia ranked 14th to 17th in the list of countries according to GDP: http://bit.ly/2dWb51l; http://bit.ly/2ejhOpw; http://bit.ly/2dqu4jQ). In 2006, President Putin hosted the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg. Russia's membership of the G8 was suspended in 2014 because of its illegal annexation of Crimea. Russia joined the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organisation, in 1996.
