Berlin and Warsaw have said that this is acceptable, even though the former questioned the wisdom of the move as Kazakh oil, which is sometimes mixed with Russian oil, would still be allowed to flow through the pipeline. The new proposal states that the temporary derogation granted to Germany and Poland for the supply of crude oil from Russia through the northern section of the Druzhba oil pipeline should end. That said, in the new proposal, there are actually provisions that target Russian energy and could be approved by Budapest and other naysayers, as they are narrow and leave most countries untouched. This is a position that will probably remain unchanged as long as energy prices remain high and risk spiking again in fall and winter of this year. Russia's lucrative diamond trade with the EU will also be left alone, and the bloc can still export goods such as lasers, cloud services, and insure Russian agricultural products.ĭeep Background: One of the reasons why Brussels doesn't pursue more weighty energy sanctions is that Hungary and a few other Central and Eastern European countries, such as Bulgaria and Slovakia, have signaled that they aren't ready to agree on such moves. The EU is not going after Russian gas here, nor its vast nuclear industry, including the state-owned behemoth Rosatom. They largely plug gaps and tighten screws, clarifying already-agreed provisions, and only introducing measures that won't damage the Russian economy in any significant ways. In many respects, they follow the same pattern as the last five packages on Russia agreed by Brussels since last summer. The second reason it's likely that the sanctions will be waved through with relative ease is that, ultimately, they are weak. There will be no surprises, and officials from EU member states are already familiar with the suggestions. First, the very same ambassadors have already been briefed by the European Commission about the content of the sanctions package in so-called "confessionals" since late April. There are two reasons for the likely quick turnaround. By EU standards, that would be pretty fast. While it is unclear exactly how long it will take for the member states to agree, the working assumption is that the measures - the 11th since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 - will be adopted in the latter half of May. What You Need To Know: EU ambassadors met in Brussels on May 10 and May 12 to formally review the European Commission's latest proposal on new sanctions targeting Russia. ![]() Brief #1: What's In The EU's New Russia Sanctions Package? I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two major issues: the European Union's latest sanctions package targeting Moscow and two damning OSCE reports on Belarus and Russia. Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
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