The European Union will apply a new set of trade sanctions to Moscow on Saturday, at a time when Russia shows no sign of ending its war in Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today at the summit of bloc leaders in Versailles. read full speech (in English).
“Tomorrow, we will take a fourth package of actions to further isolate Russia and drain the resources it uses to finance this barbaric war,” von der Leyen said.
The new sanctions package has not yet been published, but the president of the Commission highlighted the key sectors that would be affected.
“We will ban the export of EU luxury goods from our country to Russia as a direct blow to the Russian elite,” he announced.
The bloc also banned imports of “essential goods in the iron and steel sector” from Russia. The European Union expects the move to cut “billions of export earnings” for Russia.
Von der Leyen added that the EU “ensures that the Russian state and its elite cannot use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions”, without providing details on how the EU intends to do so.
Finally, the EU “will propose a major ban on new European investments in the Russian energy sector”.
“This ban will cover all investments, technology transfers, financial services, etc., for energy exploration and production – and will therefore have a major impact on Putin,” von der Leyen said. The new EU sanctions on energy lag behind UK, US and Canadian actions to ban imports of Russian oil.
The announcement comes as the G7 countries — the European Union/UK, United States, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada — have pledged that they will remove Russia’s trading privileges at the World Trade Organization and limit its ability to obtain IMF financing. and banks. world.
