German exports to Russia could fall more in 2015 - business lobby

BERLIN (Reuters) - German exports to Russia fell nearly a fifth in 2014 due to sanctions and may drop even more this year, the head of a business lobby said in a newspaper interview on Friday, warning that up to 60,000 jobs could be lost. The European Union has imposed sanctions on Russia's defence, oil and financial sectors over Moscow's role in the crisis in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. Germany sold around 36 billion euros (32.04 billion pounds) of goods to Russia in 2013 before the crisis began - almost a third of the EU's total - and some 6,200 German firms are active there. "The decline in exports has accelerated from month to month so we have to fear an even worse development in 2015 if there is no political solution to the crisis," Eckhard Cordes, head of Germany's Committee on Eastern European Economic relations, told Rheinische Post daily. "On the premise that there are around 300,000 jobs connected to export businesses with Russian partners, a durable slump of 20 percent (in German exports to Russia) could lead to the loss of 60,000 jobs in the worst case," Cordes said. But despite active lobbying against sanctions by German industry, Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken a firm line with Moscow, defending the sanctions agreed by the EU. On Thursday, Merkel accused Russia of violating Europe's peaceful post-war order with its interventions in Ukraine and said Europe could not consider lifting economic sanctions against Moscow until it changed course. (Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Hugh Lawson)