Press
The German government is causing discontent in Brussels with its reservations about new sanctions against Russia. There is speculation about the background to this.
Brussels – According to information from the German Press Agency, the German government is blocking progress in negotiations on the EU’s next package of sanctions against Russia. According to diplomats in Brussels, German concerns and requests for changes are a key reason why the sanctions planning has not yet been completed.
Recently, it felt as if Germany was the new Hungary, said an EU official, alluding to the fact that the Budapest government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban had repeatedly delayed decisions on Russia sanctions in the past.
The planned new EU sanctions 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 produce weapons for the war against Ukraine.
In addition, there are plans to impose tough EU sanctions for the first time against Russia’s billion-dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) business. According to diplomats, the European Commission wants to prohibit ports such as the one in Zeebrugge, Belgium, from being used to ship Russian LNG to third countries. This will 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.
Federal government addresses liability issues
According to EU diplomats, Germany’s reservations about the plans relate primarily to measures that are intended to make it more difficult to circumvent EU sanctions. Among other things, the German government is demanding that a planned rule on the liability of company branches in the event of violations be limited to certain goods or deleted entirely. The background to this is obviously the fear that otherwise German companies could be held responsible for violations of sanctions.
In addition, according to information from the German Press Agency, the federal government considers certain reporting requirements to be superfluous and wants to ensure that a measure is weakened that is intended to further restrict the use of the Russian SPFS system for the exchange of electronic messages on financial transactions. dpa
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