The main issues relating to the European Union’s 19th package of sanctions against Russia were resolved on Wednesday 8 October at the level of the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper), including travel restrictions on Russian diplomats posted in EU Member States (see EUROPE 13725/29).
Final approval of the package will depend on the attitude of Austria and Slovakia.
Vienna is calling for the Austrian bank Raiffeisen, which has been ordered by a court in Russia to pay compensation to a company owned by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, to be allowed to claim compensation itself from the oligarch’s assets frozen in the EU.
All the other EU countries reject such an operation, seeing it as a way of giving credence to Russian court rulings and unfreezing frozen Russian assets.
On arriving at the Ecofin Council in Luxembourg on Friday 10 October, Austrian Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer stressed the “decisive role” played by European sanctions in “economically weakening the Russian aggressor”. “On the other hand, the Russian authorities are arbitrarily treating an Austrian company unfairly”, he said.
Slovakia, for its part, maintains a general reservation on the sanctions package. It is still linking this issue to its specific position on the supply of Russian hydrocarbons, at a time when the EU Council is set to decide on the end of Russian gas imports by 2027 (see EUROPE 13726/22).
The Swedish Finance Minister, Elisabeth Svantesson, has called for tougher sanctions against Russia for its military aggression against Ukraine. She referred to information from her country’s intelligence services according to which the Kremlin was lying about inflation figures which, according to her, had reached “20%”. “They want us to believe that sanctions don’t work”, she stressed. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)