Brussels, 12/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Foreign Affairs Council on 17 November will discuss sanctions against Russia, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini has announced. “We will have a ministerial meeting in Brussels on Monday and there will be a discussion on this. I wouldn't say only on the opportunity of increasing the sanctions, but especially on the means of supporting Ukraine in these difficult times”, Mogherini said on 11 November, highlighting the country's economic situation and also the energy issues. According to Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU was not planning any new measures except for the possibility of extending the list of sanctioned people.
Mogherini believed that the situation on the ground was going “in the wrong direction” (see EUROPE 11194). On Wednesday 12 November, NATO confirmed the entry of columns of Russian military equipment including tanks, artillery and combat troops - which Moscow considers as unfounded accusations. In response, Ukraine has said it is preparing for combat. The OSCE secretary general told the European Parliament that his organisation was monitoring “the ceasefire in a region where the ceasefire is not operational”. “We have noted the arrival of military equipment in a region covered by a ceasefire. Although our objective is to work on strengthening the ceasefire, it exists increasingly on paper only, in some ways”, he told journalists (our translation throughout). He called on the EU to put pressure on Russia to breathe new life into the political process. In Mogherini's view, the issue was not to renegotiate anything but to implement the Minsk agreements.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, the European Commission granted a €260 million loan to Kiev as part of the €1.6 billion macro-financial assistance that it gave Ukraine in the spring (see EUROPE 11042). Out of this total envelope, €860 million has already been spent. The loans are subject to the respect of conditions for good budgetary management and reforms linked to the energy and financial sectors. They can be used to repay the gas debt of Ukrainian company Naftogaz to Russian company Gazprom. (CG and MB)