Yes to the Russian coal embargo, but oil can wait. On the day the EU officially adopted the fifth package of sanctions, the news was overshadowed by an announced halt to the oil debate. From Kyiv, on the other hand, a concrete message of hope for Ukraine comes with an acceleration of the EU accession process. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, during a visit to the stricken country that will remain in the annals of this conflict, handed President Zelenskyy a questionnaire to embark on the European path.
“Today we are here to give you a first positive answer. In this envelope, dear Volodymyr, is an important step towards EU membership. This questionnaire is the basis for our discussion in the coming months. Here is your way to the European Union, he said. “Ukraine is already closely linked to our Union. Therefore we will accelerate this process as much as possible and make sure that all conditions are met.
Questionnaire that the President of Ukraine planned to fill out in a week. Together with the High Representative for EU Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, the number one of the EU executive went to the sites of the war crimes in Bucha. The two pledged support from the EU civilian mission for the investigation, as well as a new allocation of 500 million weapons from the European Peace Facility.
In Brussels, however, the fifth package has been given the green light on the sanctions front as the oil debate wanes. The European institutions often complain to the press that they keep asking for new measures as soon as a package is approved. But this time it was the Commission President herself, Ursula von der Leyen, who announced that the EU executive was already working on oil, and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, announced Monday at the External Council that the issue would be raised.
But stopping oil will not be on the agenda. “This requires unanimity among member states, and we all know how dependent we are on resources from Russia. So it is a technically and politically complicated matter, said a senior EU official. Germany could have slowed down by obtaining an extension of the revocation of coal import contracts. The move away from fossil fuels will take four months, or Moscow won’t start until August with less revenue for the coal, which brings the Kremlin eight billion euros in revenue annually.
The package also includes a total transaction ban and asset freeze for four Russian banks, Bank Otkritie, Novikombank, Sovcombank and VTB, the country’s second largest, which is likely to have to sell its branches in Europe. The four institutes account for 23% of the market share in the Russian banking sector. Other import bans worth €5.5 billion concern concrete, rubber products, wood, spirits, highvalue seafood including caviar.
Of this, vodka alone accounts for 98% of the alcohol on Russian boats and around 50 million euros on the market. Then there is the stop on technological products and the ban on Russian ships docking in European ports and the transit of Russian and Belarusian trucks on EU roads. With the appropriate exceptions for the essentials. Another 217 people are then affected, including Putin’s two daughters, Katerina Tikhonova and Mariya Vorontsova, highranking Kremlin officials, oligarchs Moshe Kantor, Boris Rotenberg and Oleg Deripaska 18 units, making the total number of recently sanctioned people from the beginning of the conflict at 898 and entities at 32.
According to Brussels, the sanctions are working “in the first four weeks, imports from Russia fell by 9% in value and by more than 20% in volume, an EU official said. The period of sanctions is always too long for those who live with the terror of the bombings, they pointed out from Kyiv, but democracy has its times and rules, multiplied by 27. And Brussels is facing a second, unprecedented emergency, the the European project is again put to the test. Meanwhile, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has convened an extraordinary summit for May 30th and 31st: Energy, defense and the Ukraine crisis are on the table.