EU Fails to Agree on Oil Embargo on Russia

Date: 30 May 2022 - 21:37

News ID: ۱۰۳۲۰۱

BRUSSELS (Dispatches) -- EU countries failed to agree on a Russian oil import ban despite last-minute haggling before a summit got under way in Brussels on Monday, exposing a struggle to widen sanctions on Moscow over its war in Ukraine as the economic risk for Europe grows.

The leaders of the 27 European Union countries were to agree in principle to an oil embargo, a draft of their summit conclusions showed, but they were to leave the practical details and hard decisions until later.

The EU has rolled out five packages of sanctions against Russia since the conflict began more than three months ago. But an agreement on oil sanctions has proved elusive for weeks because so many countries depend on Russian crude.

“There is no compromise for this moment at all,” said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose country has been the main holdout for a deal, as he arrived for the two-day summit.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who proposed the latest package of sanctions at the start of May, agreed: “We’re not there yet.”

Europeans claim there is broad agreement on the rest of the package, including cutting Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, from the SWIFT messaging system, banning Russian broadcasters from the EU and adding people to a list whose assets are frozen.

But a senior European Commission official said the whole package, including oil, should be approved in one go.

“We’re getting a little bogged down in all of the details and we’re forgetting the big picture,” Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said.

The draft text cited by Reuters - which may still be revised again - would confirm that the sixth package of EU sanctions would include a ban on seaborne oil imports, with pipeline oil supplied to landlocked Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to be sanctioned at some later point.

However, the leaders would ask diplomats and ministers to finalize an agreement that would also ensure fair competition between those still getting Russian oil and those cut off.

Russia Advances in East Ukraine

Russian forces edged toward the centre of the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk Monday, while President Volodymyr Zelensky prepared to appeal to EU leaders at the emergency summit.

Zelensky was expected to press EU officials at the summit “to kill Russian exports” as he seeks to crank up international pressure on Moscow.

Russia forces continued their push in the eastern Donbas region,

upping the pressure on the twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.
The situation in Severodonetsk, just across the Donets river from Lysychansk, was “very difficult”, the local Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a statement on social media.
“The Russians are advancing into the middle of Severodonetsk”, while the fighting continued, Gaiday said.
Newly appointed French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna made the journey to the Ukrainian capital Monday for talks with Zelensky.
The highest-ranking French official to visit Kyiv since Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24, Colonna also visited the town of Bucha, where Russian troops have been accused of committing war crimes against the civilian population.
In the eastern Donbas region, Moscow’s forces were making slow progress towards taking the city of Severodonetsk.
Zelensky, in his daily address Sunday, described a scene of devastation in Severodonetsk.
“All critical infrastructure has already been destroyed... More than two-thirds of the city’s housing stock has been completely destroyed,” he said.
In Severodonetsk, where an estimated 15,000 civilians remain, a local official said “constant shelling” made it increasingly difficult to get in or out while the water supply is increasingly unstable.
In Melitopol, Russia-installed authorities said in a statement the city had been targeted by a “terrorist attack”.
According to the statement, car packed with explosives exploded in the city centre, injuring two “humanitarian aid” volunteers, a 28-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man.
“The Ukrainian government continues its war on the civilian population and the infrastructure of cities,” the officials said.