Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) The EU has approved a new package of sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine. The sanctions come into effect once published later today in the Official Journal of the EU, Reuters reports.
The European Commission points out that the sanctions include “a far-reaching ban on new investment across the Russian energy sector.” Other measures target additional Russian businessmen, among them, Roman Abramovich, as well as restricting exports of luxury goods and imports of steel.
According to an EU source, although the measures target the Russian energy companies Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom Neft, bloc members will be allowed to buy natural gas and oil from them.
The new measures include a ban on transactions with select Russian state-controlled companies and entities.
The EC indicated that the ban on steel imports should hit products worth approximately 3.3 billion euro, adding that exports of luxury goods worth more than 300 euro to Russia are to be banned. Companies in the bloc will not be allowed to export automobiles worth more than 50,000 euro, said one source.
In addition, EU credit rating agencies will not be allowed to issue ratings to Russian companies and Russia, the Commission having stressed that the move will restrict their access to EU markets.
Fourth set of measures
The latest package of sanctions comes on top of three previous rounds that included the exclusion of some Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging network, travel bans, asset freezes and more.
Today, the French government called on companies in the country to implement EU sanctions against Russia. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal noted that the French energy giant TotalEnergies has halted new investments in Russia.
The company had come under pressure from activists and activist investors to withdraw from Russia. Two NGOs had announced plans to sue TotalEnergies unless it stopped doing business with Russia. The company holds 19.4% of Novatek, Russia’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, and has a stake in the producer’s Arctic LNG project.
