BRUSSELS The European Union formally adopted on Friday its 11th package of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, focusing on preventing the circumvention of existing measures.
The formal adoption follows an agreement reached by EU governments on Wednesday. Below are the main features of the latest package:
TRADE MEASURES
- The EU will be able to restrict the sale of sanctioned goods and technology to third countries if these third countries re-sell those goods or technology to Russia.
- The EU is banning the transit of certain sensitive goods like advanced technology or aviation-related materials, exported from the EU to third countries, via Russia.
- The EU adds 87 new entities to the list of those directly supporting Russia's military and industrial complex which means they will be subject to tighter export restrictions for dual-use and advanced technology items. Apart from Russian and Iranian entities already on the list, the EU adds companies registered in China, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Syria and Armenia.
- The EU will not export to Russia 15 new technology items that have been found on the battlefield in Ukraine in Russian weaponry or equipment needed to produce such items.
- The EU tightens restrictions on imports of iron and steel goods by requiring importers of sanctioned iron and steel goods that have been processed in a third country to prove that the inputs used do not come from Russia.
- Some companies, unable to sell sanctioned goods to Russia, sold Moscow the production rights to these goods so that Russia can produce them locally. The EU has now banned the sale, licensing, transfer or referral of intellectual property rights to Russia for the manufacture of sanctioned goods outside the EU.
- The EU extends the export ban on luxury cars to Russia to all new and second-hand cars above 1.900 cm³ engine size, and all electric and hybrid vehicles.
TRANSPORT MEASURES
- The package includes a full ban on trucks with Russian trailers and semi-trailers from transporting goods to the EU. This is meant to stop the circumvention of the ban on Russian freight road operators to carry goods in the EU, because under the existing sanctions Russian trailers were allowed to move on after the Russian-registered truck was switched to one with a different registration.
- Ships that engage in ship-to-ship transfers of sanctioned Russian cargo like Russian crude oil or petroleum products to circumvent a price cap introduced on the products by the G7, will not be allowed into EU ports.
- Ships that turn off their navigation tracking systems when transporting Russian oil subject to the oil import ban or G7 price cap will not be allowed to enter EU ports.
ENERGY MEASURES
- The EU package ends the possibility of importing Russian oil by pipeline to Germany and Poland. While both countries have declared they would not be importing oil via the Russian "Friendship" pipeline anyway, a formal prohibition from the EU allows them to end contracts with Russia without legal consequences.
- The package introduces strict and very targeted derogations to the existing export bans to enable the maintenance of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline which transports Kazakh oil to the EU through Russia.
- The package extends the exemption from the oil price cap for Sakhalin oil for Japan until March 31, 2024.
ADDITIONAL LISTINGS
- Over 100 individuals and entities are added to the list of asset freezes. This includes senior military officials, decision makers on the war, persons involved in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, judges who took politically motivated decisions against Ukrainian citizens, persons responsible for the looting of cultural heritage, businessmen, propagandists, as well as Russian IT companies providing critical technology and software to the Russian intelligence, banks operating in the occupied territories and entities working with the Russian armed forces.
OTHER
- The EU extends a ban on Russian media broadcasting in the EU to five additional channels.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Susan Fenton)
