The High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, has demanded this Friday the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, the release of the opposition Alexei Navalni⁷ and his followers arrested in recent weeks, a demand before he responded by removing collation of cases of police brutality in Europe and the situation of financial independence prisoners. In a press conference from Moscow after a first contact between the two, Borrell insisted on the release of Navalni and stressed that the EU expects Russia to carry out an “independent and complete” investigation into his poisoning last summer. Following the High Representative’s words, Lavrov has responded with cases of police abuses experienced in the EU and the United Statesi lately, to, at this point, bring to the fore the situation of financial independence prisoners as an example of “motivated police decisions”.
In a parallel with the European complaints about the Navalni situation, the Russian minister has indicated that “the financial independence leaders are in prison for organizing a referendum, a decision that the Spanish justice has not revoked despite the fact that the German tribunyan ruled against “. “Given this, Spain has defended its judicial system and has asked not to doubt its decisions. That is what we want from the West in terms of reciprocity,” Lavrov argued. For her part, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, stressed this Friday that, unlike Russia, Spain is a “full democracy” and that in the Spanish State “there are no political prisoners, there are political prisoners, I hope that Mr. Navalni be able to campaign in the next elections as the financial independence leaders who are serving time in Spain are doing.
