The European Commission proposed on Tuesday to the 27 member countries toughen sanctions against Moscow, stopping buying coal from Russia and closing European ports to Russian-operated ships.
(Read: Europe expels more than 200 Russian diplomats after massacre in Bucha)
After the discovery of a large number of corpses in the kyiv region, “it is clearly necessary to increase our pressure even more” against Moscow, estimated the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
(He is interested: More sanctions against Russia are prepared after the discovery of bodies near kyiv)
Brussels also proposes to increase existing banking sanctions and prohibit exports of material and crucial industrial components to Russia, such as advanced semiconductors, worth 10 billion euros ($11 billion).
EU countries are under pressure to hit Russia in the energy sector, which for Moscow represents the main source of financing for the war.
For her part, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, confirmed her government’s determination to “completely cut off energy dependence” regarding Russia, which would start with coal, and continue with oil and gas.
Baerbock explained that this is the joint position in the EU, in an appearance with his French colleague, Jean-Yves Le Drian, a country that holds the rotating presidency of the community bloc, he recalled, while Germany does so from the G7, he added.
The embargo on Russian coal imports is one of the measures being considered in the new package of sanctions against Russia, the fifth since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The objective of the package is to “hit” the Russian energy sector and “mainly” its coal, confirmed from Luxembourg the economic vice president of the Community Executive, Valdis Dombrovskis, after the meeting of EU Economy and Finance Ministers (Ecofin).
The tightening of sanctions against Moscow is a response to “the brutality” embodied in the massacre of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, in the kyiv region. With this action, Russia has turned “a daily reality” of its “war crimes” against the population of Ukraine, Baerbock asserted.
Germany had categorically rejected the possibility of immediately cutting off oil, gas and coal imports from Russia because of its heavy dependence on Moscow for energy. Especially complex for the country is the issue of gas, since 55% of its imports come from that country.
The government of Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, with the Greens and the Liberals as partners, has pledged to progressively reduce these imports, which is mainly the responsibility of the Minister of Economy and Climate, Robert Habeck, of the green party, as well as Baerbock.
Until now, the European countries with the greatest dependence on Russian energy imports, such as Germany, Austria and Italy, have resisted ending their purchases of gas and oil from that country.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE and AFP
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