On Tuesday 31 May the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, stressed the implementation of the sixth package of sanctions, which could be formally adopted in the coming days.
“We are focused on the implementation of the sixth package of sanctions; this does not prevent any member of the European Council from having opinions on the subjects of additional sanctions, but we are focused on the implementation of the sixth package of sanctions”, he explained.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, clarified that the EU had taken measures against the important resources that come from the purchase of fossil products from Russia, with sanctions against oil and coal as well as RepowerEU, and had also taken measures concerning the Russian financial sector and economy. “This does not mean that we do not have to fill gaps”, she explained.
On arriving at the European Council, the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, said that it was now time to take a “break” and see the impact of the measures taken. Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa took a similar line, saying that the EU should not discuss new sanctions for the time being.
On the contrary, their Estonian counterpart, Kaja Kallas, said the EU should already be thinking about additional sanctions. “We will have to talk about a seventh package of sanctions because the situation is not improving in Ukraine”, she said. “I think gas should be included in the seventh package, but I’m also a realist - so I don’t think it will be there”, she added, saying gas was a much more difficult issue than oil. “It is clear that the gas embargo will not be an issue in the next sanctions package either. Oil is much easier to compensate for”, added Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.
Orbán and Petkov satisfied
On Monday night, EU leaders agreed on the sixth package of sanctions, including a two-stage oil embargo with a temporary exemption for oil transported by pipeline. This should satisfy the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.
“We succeeded in defeating the European Commission’s proposal to ban the use of Russian oil in Hungary. We have enough problems without this, with very high energy prices, high inflation and sanctions that have left Europe on the brink of a global economic crisis. In these circumstances, it would have been unbearable for us to have to run the Hungarian economy on more expensive oil”, he stressed, adding that the “most perverse” idea of including pipelines in the embargo “has been avoided”.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov also expressed his satisfaction. “There will be a special clause with special derogations until 2024”, he explained, adding that his country is the only one with access to the sea and allowed exceptions. According to Petkov, the postponement is necessary because the Bulgarian refinery works with Russian oil and requires technical adaptation to refine another type of oil. “This is an opportunity to (...) not have a price increase based on changes in the mix”, explained the Prime Minister.
However, Mr de Croo warned that “very clear” agreements had been made to ensure that countries with an exemption would not have access to cheaper fuels than others.
See the conclusions of the European Council: https://aeur.eu/f/1vu (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with the editorial staff)