OREANDA-NEWS. As the head of the Dusseldorf Chamber of Commerce and Industry Gregor Berghausen said at the online conference "Assessment of Russian Sanctions", Germany in particular and the European Union as a whole lose billions of euros every year due to restrictive measures against Russia.

Earlier, the Economic Institute in Munich IFO presented a study commissioned by the Dusseldorf Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in which experts studied the consequences of EU and US sanctions, as well as counter measures by Russia for the economies of Germany and Europe.

The study, reported by RIA Novosti, indicates that the lifting of EU restrictive measures against Moscow would be more cost-effective for German companies, primarily in the East of Germany. This, as noted in the document, is due to the "intensity of trade ties" between East Germany and Russia. Thus, the lifting of sanctions "could contribute to the alignment of the East with the economically stronger West," the study authors believe. In Saxony in particular, restrictions affected more than 60 percent of the surveyed sales-related businesses.

The head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry added that the economy is subordinated to political decisions regarding sanctions against Moscow, but "we need to deal with what this means for trade with Russia, which is very important for Dusseldorf." He stressed that close cooperation with partners in Moscow, including for 20 years - through the chambers of commerce and industry, is "particularly affected" because of the restrictive measures.

Berghausen gave exact figures for financial losses. Germany, according to the study, loses 5.4 billion euros per year, and this has not been the first year. Berghausen believes that this is a lot, because at the EU level it is already 20 billion. He added that in the Düsseldorf region alone, economic losses amount to 318 million euros annually.