The EU plans to approve this Monday more sanctions against Russia agreed with G7

The countries of the European Union (EU) plan to approve tomorrow, Monday, the new economic sanctions against Russia agreed with their G7 partners (the group of most industrialized countries in the world) to further isolate the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine.

These measures, which include denying Russia the status of most favored nation in its markets, revoking important benefits within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), were presented by the European Commission and the European External Action Service ( SEAE) in a meeting held today with the permanent representative ambassadors of the Twenty-seven.

“Presentation by the Commission and the EEAS of their proposals for new sanctions, drawn up after the Versailles meeting and in consultation with our international partners,” the six-monthly presidency of the EU, held by France, reported this afternoon on its official Twitter account .

These measures were analyzed by the EU leaders at their informal meeting last Friday in Versailles (France) and agreed on the same day with the G7 (Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom).

The French presidency added in its tweet that the ambassadors of the 27 member states will proceed to “finalize and approve” it in their new meeting “scheduled for tomorrow at COREPER”, the name by which these work meetings are called.

The president of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen, already anticipated last Friday that these sanctions would receive the approval of the Twenty-seven “to further isolate Russia and drain the resources it uses to finance this barbaric war” against Ukraine.

Von der Leyen stressed that the previous waves of sanctions that have been adopted and are in force “have hit Russia’s economy hard” and that “the ruble has collapsed”, while “many of the main Russian banks are isolated from the banking system”. international”.

Denying Russia the status of “most favored nation” in its markets from now on stands out in a special way in the new package of sanctions, since that decision will lead to an increase in tariffs for Russian products.

Von der Leyen noted that they will also work to suspend Russia’s membership rights in multilateral financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, so that it would not be able to obtain any more loans or benefits from these institutions.

He then said that they will continue to “pressure” Russian elites close to Putin, for which the G7 finance, justice and interior ministers will meet next week to coordinate.

Likewise, they will seek to ensure that the Russian state and its elites cannot use crypto assets to circumvent the sanctions imposed, and will prohibit the export of any luxury goods from the EU to Russia.

Another measure will be to veto the import of key goods in the iron and steel sector from Russia and, finally, Von der Leyen stated that they will propose to ban new European investments in the entire Russian energy sector, from exploration to production.