{"id":6458,"date":"2026-05-07T02:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T02:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/6458\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T02:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T02:05:10","slug":"luxembourgish-mep-leads-recruitment-drive-for-trip-to-russia-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/6458\/","title":{"rendered":"Luxembourgish MEP leads recruitment drive for trip to Russia \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAssistance with finding suitable accommodation can be provided, and personalized invitations to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum will follow in due course,\u201d reads the letter, which was sent to a broad list of EU lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>Kartheiser\u2019s outreach is controversial due to restrictions on cooperation between the European Parliament and its Russian counterpart. The European Parliament officially suspended official dialogue with Russian parliamentary bodies in 2014, while Russian and Belarusian officials have been barred from accessing the European Parliament since shortly after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. There have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.consilium.europa.eu\/en\/press\/press-releases\/2026\/04\/23\/russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-20th-round-of-stern-eu-sanctions-hits-energy-military-industrial-complex-trade-and-financial-services-including-crypto\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.consilium.europa.eu\/en\/press\/press-releases\/2026\/04\/23\/russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-20th-round-of-stern-eu-sanctions-hits-energy-military-industrial-complex-trade-and-financial-services-including-crypto\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">20 rounds of EU sanctions<\/a> against Russia.<\/p>\n<p>None of this has deterred Kartheiser, who traveled to Moscow last June despite facing expulsion from the ECR group. In response to questions from POLITICO, Kartheiser defended his St Petersburg trip \u2014 which he said was privately funded \u2014 saying its relevance was \u201cundisputable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2219881777-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8392580\"  \/>Petras Au\u0161trevi\u010dius, a Lithuanian lawmaker with the centrist Renew Europe group, called the recruitment push \u201can open attempt to recruit\u201d MEPs \u201cfor working for Russia as informants, influencers and more.\u201d | Martin Bertrand\/Hans Lucas\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore and more high-level European politicians call openly for a renewed dialogue with Russia on ministerial level, in Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Croatia, etc,\u201d he wrote in response to emailed questions. \u201cSo it is only a question of time until the EU policy will change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Kartheiser declined to say which lawmakers, if any, had expressed interest in joining his trip by a May 6 deadline. \u201cI have a strict line of conduct,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI do not communicate any names, numbers or political affiliation. Indeed, participants might face negative consequences (as it happened to me) so I remain silent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Petras Au\u0161trevi\u010dius, a Lithuanian lawmaker with the centrist Renew Europe group, called the recruitment push \u201can open attempt to recruit\u201d MEPs \u201cfor working for Russia as informants, influencers and more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAssistance with finding suitable accommodation can be provided, and personalized invitations to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1697,5,1211,1698],"class_list":{"0":"post-6458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-luxembourg","8":"tag-eu-russia-relations","9":"tag-luxembourg","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-sanctions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@lu\/116530847729733464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/lu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}