EU finalizes more sanctions on Russia and prepares for the energy crisis

The European Union is finalizing a fourth package of sanctions against Russia to prevent Moscow from circumventing the retaliation already approved with loopholes and will present a set of measures on Tuesday to reduce its dependence on gas and oil, the European Commission said on Monday.

“Given the evolution of the situation in Ukraine, the recklessness of the Kremlin against civilians, women, children, men, obviously we are also working on more sanctions that may be justified”, assured the president of the Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, in an appearance without questions before meeting in Brussels with the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi.

However, the head of the Community Executive did not give any date on when the new sanctions could be approved. “Now we have to ensure that there are no loopholes and that the effect of sanctions” already approved “is maximized,” she said.

The new package was already discussed last Friday by the Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-seven and, although they did not make any decision, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, said that the fourth round of measures was going to include more oligarchs Russian banks to the sanctioned list or to expand the Russian banks excluded from the SWIFT system.

Since the invasion began on February 24, the EU has expelled seven Russian banks from the interbank system, among which are not Sberbank, the country’s largest entity, nor Gazprombank, because they process a large part of the energy operations with the block.

In addition, it has frozen the assets of the Russian Central Bank in community territory, has sanctioned the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, among other high-ranking government officials, as well as the country’s military leadership, approved an embargo commercial to several sectors of strategic importance for the Russian economy already vetoed to Russia Today and Sputnik.

“We are united in strongly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We are United in imposing sanctions”, pointed out Draghi, for whom “this extraordinary unit” is “our main strength”.

On the other hand, Von der Leyen confirmed that Brussels will present a new set of measures this Tuesday that will have three “pillars” main: diversify the supply of fossil fuels to reduce dependence on Moscow, accelerate investments “massive” in renewable energies and promote improvements in energy efficiency.

“We have to get rid of Russian gas, oil and coal”, the German emphasized, later explaining that the search for other gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers will also have to take into account that the new structure is also “compatible” with hydrogen.

This document was going to be published last week, but the invasion of Ukraine by Russia forced the Community Executive to delay its presentation for another week to take more into account the consequences of the war and include measures to act in a more forceful way about them.

In fact, Von der Leyen pointed out that another of the points of the text will be to ensure that the community electricity market “still efficient” despite the increase in prices due to the armed conflict, so it will have two “dimensions”: on the one hand, protecting vulnerable homes and businesses and, on the other, a look “more structural” on the composition of the market itself.

“Today there is a part of renewables but the majority is gas, oil and coal. This is going to change. With massive investments in renewables we will see a higher proportion and growth rate of renewables and that changes the structure of our market. We therefore have to look at the composition of the market”, he expressed.