Germany EU states agree on new sanctions against Russia
The EU states have agreed on a new package of sanctions against Russia. This was announced by the current Belgian EU Council Presidency in Brussels on Thursday. The planned punitive measures are intended in particular to combat the circumvention of existing sanctions. This means, for example, that Russia's arms industry can still use Western technology to manufacture weapons for the war against Ukraine.
20.06.2024, 13:41
SDA
There are also plans to impose tough EU sanctions against Russia's multi-billion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) business for the first time. According to diplomats, ports such as the one in Zeebrugge, Belgium, are to be banned from being used to ship Russian LNG to third countries. This should then lead to Russia being able to sell less liquefied natural gas and invest less money in its war of aggression due to a lack of transport capacity.
The new sanctions package was already proposed by the EU Commission at the beginning of May. The fact that an agreement was not reached sooner was mainly due to German concerns and requests for changes. Recently, an EU official said that it felt as if Germany was the new Hungary, alluding to the fact that the Budapest government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban had repeatedly delayed decisions on Russia sanctions in the past.
According to diplomats, the German government's main demand in the negotiations was that plans for stricter measures against circumvention of the existing Russia sanctions be weakened. This was apparently due to warnings from the German economy, which feared excessive administrative costs and loss of sales.
On the other hand, supporters of decisive action against the circumvention of sanctions referred to estimates by the EU Commission, according to which goods worth hundreds of millions of euros are still being delivered to Russia via subsidiaries of European companies, which should no longer end up there due to EU sanctions. Specifically, this relates in particular to goods that can contribute to the development of Russia's defense and security sector.
According to diplomats, the compromise now stipulates that the so-called "No Russia Clause" does not have to be applied to subsidiaries as planned for the time being. It requires EU exporters to contractually prohibit the re-export of certain goods to Russia and their re-export for use in Russia. This affects, for example, aviation goods, jet fuel, weapons and advanced technology goods used in Russian military systems.
