The EU gave the green light on Thursday to its fifth package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which affects the energy sector for the first time with the prohibition of imports of Russian coal and also includes an arms embargo against Russia and the veto on high-tech exports to that country.
(Read: Opening an investigation of the massacre in Bucha is the next stage: UN)
The new measures also include more sanctions against “oligarchs, Russian propaganda actorsmembers of the security and military apparatus and entities in the industrial and technological sector linked to the Russian aggression against Ukraine,” the rotating French presidency of the EU Council said on Twitter.
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The measures were proposed on Wednesday by the European Commission and adopted this Thursday by the ambassadors of the Member States to the EU after two days debating their details and now they will have to be approved by written procedure to publish them tomorrow in the official newspaper of the Union, after which they can enter into force.
#G7 leaders firmly standing together in support of Ukraine, taking further steps to sanction Russia.
Bucha atrocities will be investigated & those responsible brought to justice.
As war continues, Russia faces a long descent into economic, financial & technological isolation.
– Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 7, 2022
Banning Russian charcoal ‘would hurt Europe more’
We believe that the biggest short-term impact of these sanctions could be felt in European energy markets.
Europe’s plan for banning Russian coal imports will further damage the continent’s energy marketsand countries will have to pay more for supplies elsewhere, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Russia will be able to find buyers for its coal, but Europe will have to turn to supplies from South Africa, Australia and the United States in an already coal market. adjusted, the bank said in a report.
That will raise the price at which it is more profitable for energy companies to burn coal instead of natural gas. “This is likely to be quite costly for Europe,” analysts Natasha Kaneva and Shikha Chaturvedi said on Thursday.
Europe, which depends on Russia for almost 50% of its coal, will gradually suspend imports following allegations of atrocities committed this week by Moscow forces in Ukraine.
Germany, the Netherlands and Poland are particularly exposed, and the high level of dependency means the ban could force some countries to use even more gas, worsening the continent’s energy crisis.
European coal consumption has been declining for years as the continent moves towards cleaner forms of energy. But with gas prices so high, power companies in northwest Europe switched back to using more coal, reducing gas demand by 25 million to 35 million cubic meters a day, the bank said.
“The change is occurring as a result of price and will likely need to continue to prevent higher demand for natural gas,” the analysts said. Europe is also seeking to decouple from Russian gas, a move that will force the continent to buy supplies of liquefied natural gas on the global market.
Only Germany and Italy could curb Russian imports by 77 billion cubic meters by 2024said the bank. “This is likely to keep European natural gas prices high for the next two years,” the analysts added.
Portugal supports a total energy embargo
Portugal was willing to support a European Union embargo on Russian oil and gas to help paralyze its economy, although he admits that it would have “some negative consequences” for the Portuguese country.
“On the Portuguese side, we would naturally support any collective measure in this regard,” Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho told Portuguese media in Brussels after the NATO meeting.
Portugal would thus support the request made this Thursday by the European Parliament, which called for a “complete and immediate” embargo on Russian imports of oil, coal, nuclear fuel and gas as economic retaliation for the war in Ukraine.
Although the Portuguese country has a “limited” energy dependency on Russia, Gomes Cravinho acknowledged that this “does not mean that it does not have some negative consequences.”
We have to help paralyze the economy that sustains the Russian war machine, it is something that we would support on our side.
Other European countries depend more on Russian energy raw materials and for them “it is essential to find other solutions,” said the foreign minister.
The European Union acquires outside its territory more than half of the energy it consumes; Specifically, it buys from Moscow 46.7% of the coal it uses, 40% of the gas and 27% of the oil, exports that in 2021 accounted for 99,000 million euros of income for Russia.
The presidents of the European Commission and the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, respectively, raised on Wednesday, after the embargo on Russian coal imports proposed by Brussels, that the next step in energy sanctions should be the embargo. of the oil.INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE, AFP and Bloomberg
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