“Time to close the tap.” For example, Ursula von der Leyen announced the latest series of sanctions on Friday afternoon with which the European Union wants to increase the pressure on the Kremlin. The reality is slightly less impressive than that firm language suggests.
From New Year’s Day 2027, no drop of liquid gas from Russia will enter the EU, if it is up to the European Commission President, a year earlier than planned. The tap does not close for Russian oil and Russian gas, although the import of those two fuels has plummeted in the past year.
Nevertheless, Von der Leyen wanted to turn the new announcement into a statement. Not to Moscow, but to Washington. With the prohibition of liquid gas (LNG) and with measures against companies from other countries that “support the Russian military-industrial complex”, in the words of EU-Buitenland chef Kaja Kallas, in particular in China, the EU also wants to spawn the US.
Donald Trump recently gathered the impression that the US is willing to carry the pressure on Russia, in order to put an end to the war against Ukraine. But, he says there for a week, that only happens when Western countries stop buying Russian oil and Russian gas. After all, those sources of income keep the war economy of the Kremlin talking.
“I am willing to do several things, but not as the countries I fight for Oil from Russia,” Trump said this week at a state visit to the United Kingdom.
Trump -minded
With Trump you never know, European diplomats sighed afterwards. What will be left tomorrow of the promises he makes today? And moreover: the oil and gas that still flows from Russia today is intended for Hungary and Slovakia – two countries with Trumpist leaders. Trump could therefore have more influence on this decision than Von der Leyen.
In addition, the American requirement is seen as a strong example of opportunism. Because if countries quickly reduce their dependence on Russian fossil fuels, they will initially have to take care of them with fossil fuels from elsewhere in the world. That can be made very well with Trumps agenda to have the rest of the world import more oil, gas and LNG from the US.
And where it remains difficult to force Slovakia and Hungary to change, there were possibilities when squeezing liquid gas. Unlike oil and gas, LNG is still imported by many EU countries. The Netherlands is one of those countries.
The measures against Chinese companies that do business with Russia – including oil refineries and other companies in the fossil industry – are also widely seen as a way to get Washington on board. Both Von der Leyen and Kallas explicitly mentions China in their press conferences on Friday. They did not want to go as far as Trump: the president previously called on the EU for import duties of 50 to 100 percent against China and India, as ‘punishment’ for buying Russian oil.
Cat-and-mouse game
The list that Von der Leyen presented on Friday is the nineteenth since the invasion, three years ago. With every sanction package, the EU searches for pressure means and targets in the cat-and-mouse game, whereby companies always pop up in new forms to circumvent the sanctions.
In the latter category, for example, the sanctions are against 118 ships that are part of the Russian shadow fleet. With that fleet, Russia lets its oil secretly transported, outdated ships via clandestine. The size of that fleet has certainly tripled since the establishment of the first sanctions, because new ships are added to the fleet.
The EU countries will consider the proposal of the European Commission in the coming period. The business newspaper reported on Friday Financial Times Based on diplomatic sources already that the committee would even be prepared to release frozen EU subsidies to Hungary, to prevent a veto from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
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Under Trump, the US did not say goodbye to the sanctions, which were set under predecessor Joe Biden. However, Washington has become lax in maintaining sanctions and no longer sets new sanctions. This has made it much easier for companies to circumvent the American sanctions, research of the New York Times This summer.