FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) – The German mechanical engineering association VDMA welcomes the EU Commission’s plans for further economic sanctions against Russia, but urges more speed in the implementation. “The EU is finally taking on one of the main sources of income for the aggressor Russia and is announcing the end of importing Russian oil. This step is overdue and necessary,” said VDMA President Karl Haeusgen on Wednesday. However, the planned gradual introduction by the end of the year is not ambitious enough. “If you want to effectively hit the sources of income for Putin’s war machine, the embargo has to take effect much faster.”
Although the oil embargo will also indirectly burden mechanical and plant engineering, the VDMA “in view of Russia’s aggressive and inhuman behavior in Ukraine sees no alternative to further tightening of the sanctions,” said Haeusgen.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed the new plans for economic sanctions against Russia on Wednesday. “We are now proposing an embargo on Russian oil. This involves a complete import ban on all Russian oil,” she said in the European Parliament. Russian crude oil deliveries are to be phased out within six months and the import of refined products by the end of the year./mar/DP/jha