European Union proposes ban on oil from Russia by end of year

Europe, News May 7, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

Europe prepares to phase out Russian oil over the war in Ukraine

The European Union has proposed banning all oil imports from Russia by the end of this year and also removing Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, from the SWIFT international payments network. This is part of the sixth package of sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine.

“We now propose a ban on Russian oil. This will be a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced. She admitted that the transition will not be east as some EU member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil. “We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion, in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimizes the impact on global markets.”

EU has announced to phase out the Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year. This would “maximize pressure on Russia, while at the same time minimize collateral damage” on the European economies that heavily rely on energy exports from Russia.

Russia is the world’s second-biggest crude oil exporter after Saudi Arabia. The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia have already banned Russian oil, gas, petroleum products, and coal imports.

EU announces the sixth package of sanctions against Russia

European Commission President has announced the sixth round of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. It includes:

Listing high-ranking military officers and other individuals who committed war crimes in Bucha and who is responsible for the inhuman siege of the city of Mariupol.
De-SWIFT Sberbank – Russia’s largest bank, and two other major banks to isolate the Russian financial sector from the global system over the war in Ukraine.
Banning three big Russian state-owned broadcasters from European airwaves so that they are not allowed to distribute their content in the EU via satellite on TV or on the internet or via smartphone apps.
Complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne, and pipeline, crude and refined.

^{EU-Russia pipeline. (Image Credit: IRIA/Canva)}

EU may offer oil-dependent countries more time to ban Russian oil

The European Commission may offer more time to EU countries heavily dependent on Russian oil to join its Russia oil sanctions ban. Such exemption would offer Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic an extra year to comply with the bloc’s decision. The three states are highly dependent on Russian oil which they get directly from the Druzhba pipeline. All other member states would phase out Russian oil and gas imports by the end of this year as originally proposed.

Some EU members remain split over Brussels’s proposal for a gradual EU-wide ban on Russian oil imports. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán compared the embargo to an economic atomic bomb. “We cannot accept a proposal that ignores this circumstance. This proposal in its current form is like an atomic bomb dropped on the Hungarian economy,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russian energy company Gazprom has cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria in an attempt to pressure European companies to pay for gas in rubles as Western sanctions hit the Russian economy.