Press remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas before the Copenhagen Democracy Summit

Hello, everybody,It is good to be here at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit. It is my second time here. This is an extremely important topic because the fights that are going around in the world are not only about the things we see, but they are also about democracy. It is about autocracies fighting democracies. We see autocracies on the rise. And, if we take Ukraine, for example, it is also that Russia did not or was not afraid that Ukraine would really invade Russia. They started this war because they saw democracy expanding to Ukraine. That means also coming closer to their borders. Why is Putin afraid of this? It is because in democracy leaders are held responsible for their decisions. In democracy you can never get the vote from people to go and attack a neighbouring country. Therefore, this is also something that we are discussing here today: how to protect democracies and how to support those who have chosen the way of democracy. Q&AQ. Is the EU preparing any Russia sanctions package beyond the 17 th package that is already on the table? If so, what would that [inaudible]?Yes, we are constantly preparing different packages because we need to put more pressure on Russia to stop this war. And we have the tools - the economic tools - to pressure them. We are working on the 17 th package. I hope that we get this adopted on the FAC that we have next week. Then, we are working on the next package. There were also calls from different Member States to mirror what is discussed...