Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Moscow on Monday April 11 to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nehammer himself announced on Sunday.
On his journey, The Austrian head of state will discuss possible formulas for promoting dialogue between Russia and Ukraine with Putin and will bring up the “war crimes” committed by Russian armed forces, he said, according to Austrian public television ORF.
This meeting is the first time a head of state from an EU country has met with Putin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24.
On the other hand, this Monday European Union foreign ministers will discuss the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of fighting in the east of the country, with the debate focusing on possible sanctions against Russian gas and oil.
Options such as applying energy tariffs or paying for supplies through an escrow system are flying over the Foreign Affairs Council being held in Luxembourg, though with no finalized proposals on the table as the 27 are a long way from the consensus needed to impose those restrictions, a underlined senior EU official.
However, after the 27 approved the first round of sanctions against Russia’s energy sector with a coal embargo decided on Friday in the fifth round, the next step in the pressure against Vladimir Putin over gas and oil, a major source of revenue, goes to Moscow.
This was stated by the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, who considers this measure to be unavoidable and has already announced that the ministers will discuss it this Monday. “Sooner or later, I hope sooner, that will happen.”assured.
European sources point out that Borrell’s words are an example of leadership and that he is moving within his post of leading member states’ actions, but the reality is that the EU risks breaking the unity it has maintained so far has its response to Russian aggression.
Standing out among the cautious countries are Germany and Austria, which have refused to cut supplies immediately, and Hungary, which has threatened to veto an energy embargo, citing its national interest.
In any case, they remember in Brussels that the scale of the sanctions against Russia is unprecedented and the European consensus was built in the blink of an eye. “Consensus came about through doing and learning. We didn’t think a few weeks ago that we would be at this point,” argue diplomatic sources, who conclude that the next sanctions will largely depend on the images arriving from Ukraine.
An example of this is this the fifth package of sanctions included the last-minute coal embargo proposed by the European Commission after learning about the massacre of civilians on the outskirts of Kyiv in cities like bucha.
It is therefore time to link the response to the Russian aggression to the interests of the member states, since there are several that are 100% dependent on energy, as the senior EU official recalls, stressing that each of the bloc action taken should affect Russia more than to the European partners themselves.
Apart from the sanctions debate, Monday’s meeting will serve to ensure that the EU advances the accountability process for the war in Ukraine and ensures that those responsible for war crimes are brought to justice for their actions. To this end, ministers will hold an informal breakfast with the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, and will discuss the investigations launched by the institution.
*With information from Europa Press.
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