Diplomatic Hostage to National Interest

When Brussels talks about European solidarity, national self-interest is usually waiting just around the corner. The latest spectacle unfolding in the halls of the European Union demonstrates this reality with stark clarity. France, long prone to grandiose rhetoric about collective European action, has abruptly thrown a spanner into the bloc’s foreign policy machinery. The point of friction is Alisher Usmanov, the Russian-Uzbek businessman sitting on the EU sanctions list since the onset of the war in Ukraine.

Paris is now actively pressing to remove Usmanov from the punitive measures, which currently target nearly 3,000 individuals and entities. The motive behind this sudden diplomatic maneuver is a pragmatic trade-off: securing the release of French citizens currently held in Azerbaijan. To prevent an immediate collapse of the entire legal framework, EU ambassadors were forced on Monday to grant a brief extension, setting a new deadline of September 22. Should unanimity fail by then, the entire sanctions regime faces potential expiration—a scenario that underscores the inherent fragility of the EU's decision-making apparatus.

For months, Slovakia had stood largely alone in demanding Usmanov’s removal, alongside fellow businessman Mikhail Fridman. Bratislava’s position was hardly a secret, particularly after a letter surfaced from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, dated March 2, 2026. In that document, Erdoğan requested assistance to end what he described as unfair practices against Usmanov, noting support from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Yet while Slovakia's resistance was dismissed by peers as politically motivated, France’s sudden alignment with Bratislava has caught diplomats entirely off guard.

By invoking national security considerations, Paris has deployed a mechanism that effectively functions as a national veto, mirroring the very tactics French officials routinely condemn when used by other member states. The French government has declined to offer public commentary on the negotiations. Meanwhile, reaction from Kyiv came swiftly. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the talks during his evening address, asserting that this is definitely not the time to lift sanctions, to rescue Russian oligarchs from them.

The episode exposes the deep structural flaws of a supranational bureaucracy that operates on fragile consensus. When pressuring individual member states fails, the machinery turns inward, leaving Europe's common positions vulnerable to tactical transactionalism. Whether Paris achieves its goal or retreats, the episode leaves a clear lesson: in the trade-offs of European diplomacy, collective principles remain secondary to domestic urgency.

Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com