The United States continues to increase pressure on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine (THE CONFLICT LIVE THE SPECIAL). President Joe Biden the White House said in a statement has countersigned legislation passed by Congress ending normal trade relations with Russia and a measure banning oil imports from Moscow. Trade relations with Belarus are also frozen. The European Union, on the other hand, does not seem ready to take a similar step: the embargo on Russian oil will have to wait. The topic will not be dealt with by the EU foreign ministers on Monday: “There is no unanimity”.
The note from the White House
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“The President has countersigned HR 6968, the Ending Import of Russian Oil Act,” the White House said, “which bans imports of energy products from the Russian Federation.” normal trade suspends relations with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus”. The two measures were approved by the House of Representatives and Senate on Thursday.
Still no EU oil freeze
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The discussion of the Russian oil embargo will therefore not be on the table of the foreign ministers who will meet in Luxembourg on Monday, a postponement that does not correspond to the announcement by the Commission itself. And the reason is simple: unanimity is far away and the time is not yet ripe for debate. The Union, which turned its “unity” into a strength to suffocate Moscow economically, now threatens to slip on oil. The division is both internal to the 27 and between the Commission and the Council. Federal President Ursula von der Leyen and her deputy, the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, made it clear yesterday that the crude oil debate would be a matter of “hours”. “The oil embargo will come sooner or later, I hope sooner. We’ll talk about it at the foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday,” Borrell assured on his arrival at the NATO ministerial meeting. But that won’t be the case. A senior official working to prepare Monday’s meeting has repeatedly stressed that “oil will not be on the agenda”. “An oil embargo requires unanimity among member states and we all know how dependent we all are,” he said. “So it’s a technically and politically complicated issue. Let me be very clear about that.
European sanctions and downgrade from Standard & Poor’s
While the EU is yet to find agreement on the oil front, a fifth set of European sanctions against Moscow is yet to come into effect. But even getting the green light for this package, which includes Russia’s coal embargo, wasn’t easy. Some countries, notably Germany, have enforced (and obtained) a fourmonth waiver of existing contracts. In principle, the coal bought from Moscow today (before the package was published in the Gazzetta) can be imported until August. There are 217 Russian personalities on the blacklist: among them are Putin’s two daughters, Ekaterina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, the patronoligarch of Rusal, Oleg Deripaska, the director of the Tass news agency, Sergei Mikhailov, that of Komsomolskaya Pravda. Vladimir Sungorkin and the director of Vgtrk, the Russian state broadcasting company, Oleg Dodrodeev. At the same time, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Russia’s foreign currency debt from CC to SD, that is, in selective default. The downgrade reflects the ruble payment of dollardenominated bonds maturing on April 4. “We do not expect that investors will be able to convert the payment made in rubles into dollars, or that the government will be able to convert rubles into dollars during the 30day grace period,” S&P says.