The EU should step up sanctions on Russia to target its lucrative energy sector, the ministers of foreign affairs of Lithuania and Ireland said in Brussels yesterday.
EU governments said they would consider whether to impose an oil embargo on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as they gather this week with US President Joe Biden, who is scheduled to arrive on Thursday, for a series of summits designed to harden the West’s response to Moscow.
Seeking to force a military withdrawal from Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the EU, along with Western allies, has imposed a range of punishing sanctions, including freezing the assets of the Russian central bank.
Photo: AFP
A fifth round of sanctions would include adding more names to the EU blacklists. However, the toughest choice economically is whether to target Russian oil, as the US and Britain have done, given the 27-nation EU’s dependence on Russian gas for energy.
Moscow has said that EU sanctions on Russian oil could prompt it to close a major gas pipeline to Europe. The EU relies on Russia for 40 percent of its gas, with Germany among the most dependent of the EU’s large economies.
The Kremlin has so far not been moved to change course in Ukraine by four rounds of EU sanctions imposed over the past three weeks, including on 685 Russians and Belarusians and on Russian finance and trade.
Diplomats said that Baltic countries including Lithuania are pushing for an embargo as the next logical step, while Germany is warning against acting too quickly because of already high energy prices in Europe.
“It’s unavoidable we start talking about the energy sector, and we can definitely talk about oil because it is the biggest revenue to Russia’s budget,” Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis said.
“Looking at the extent of the destruction in Ukraine right now, it’s very hard to make the case that we shouldn’t be moving in on the energy sector, particularly oil and coal,” Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said before a meeting of EU ministers.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said if the situation worsens in Ukraine, there should be no “taboos” in terms of sanctions.
“These sanctions are meant to force President Putin into a new calculation,” an official in Macron’s office said.
Diplomats said that a Russian chemical weapons attack in Ukraine or a heavy bombardment of the capital, Kyiv, could trigger an energy embargo.
The Kremlin has so far not been moved to change course by series of EU sanctions on 685 Russian and Belarusian financiers.
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