MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is ready to work with all political parties elected to the European Parliament, Russia’s EU ambassador Vladimir Chizhov said Tuesday.
“Russia is ready, as before, to cooperate with whatever political forces that will be present in the EP. The factions and independent MEPs interested in promoting strategic cooperation between Russia and the EU can always rely on us as a constructive interlocutor,” Chizhov said during a visit to Rossiya Segodnya International News Agency.
The Russian ambassador in Brussels added, however, that dealing with the EU had never been easy for Moscow. “But we had to work together anyway, and we did it with those MEPs that were chosen by voters in EU member states. This will be the case again,” Chizhov told journalists.
He refuted a rumor spread by some media reports that alleged Russia would seek the support of primarily far-right EP parties that are said to “sympathize with Russia and its policies.”
Sunday was the fourth and last day of elections to the European Parliament that came as a wake-up call for the EU and signaled an increased frustration with its general course of action.
Far-right, far-left and nationalist forces gained in the parliamentary elections, with Eurosceptics sweeping to a clear victory across the union. Marine Le Pen’s Front National party won 24 of 74 seats allotted to France, while Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) garnered 24 of Britain’s 73 seats.
The European Parliament’s largest parties managed to stay afloat after the anti-EU storm in the election, but lost many of their representatives in the 751-seat parliament, with the right-center European People’s Party coming 61 seats short, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats losing six seats and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe losing 19 seats.
Commenting on the results of the elections, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he took “a very clear message from this election: people are deeply disillusioned … they want change.”