Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has expressed regret that the EU countries were unable to agree on sanctions against Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church.
According to European Pravda, Borrel wrote about this in a blog post on the website of the European External Action Service.
"At the end of May, we reached an agreement on the sixth package of sanctions against Russia. But it took us more than a month to approve it. And I must say with regret that some of its final provisions were mitigated, and at the last moment, Patriarch Kirill was excluded from the list of sanctioned persons, despite the fact that his presence on the list was not challenged during the discussions in the Rada, and despite his long support for Putin's war," he wrote.
Borrel has stressed that with the course of the war in Ukraine, the speed and determination of the European Union's actions increasingly decreased.
"We see similar dynamics in the opening of accession negotiations between North Macedonia and Albania, where one country blocks what the others agreed on, again, with negative consequences for the reputation and influence of the EU," he added.
As it was reported, the European Union did not add Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to the list of persons who fall under sanctions for the Russian war against Ukraine as part of the sixth package approved in early June.
According to Western media, even at the stage of discussing the sanctions package, it became known that Gundyaev was initially put on the list, but in the end, was removed because of the position of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban has openly stated that he does not support the introduction of sanctions against the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, because "this will endanger religious freedom."