For all the tough talk, Europe is unlikely to punish Russia over last week’s downing of an airliner over Ukraine beyond speeding up the imposition of already agreed individual sanctions when the bloc’s foreign ministers meet today.
The severity of future EU sanctions could depend on the Netherlands, which suffered the greatest loss of life when the Malaysia Airlines flight was brought down.
US President Barack Obama has piled pressure on Europe for a more forceful response and the three leading EU powers – Britain, France and Germany – said they should be ready to ratchet up sanctions.
British Prime Minister David Cameron warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone call that action would follow unless there was “a radical change” in Russian behaviour. But diplomats said today’s meeting in Brussels was not expected to go much further than agreeing on people and possibly companies to be hit with asset freezes under a more aggressive framework agreed last week. Previously, they had only said they would decide on the list by the end of July.
Several diplomats said moving towards more sweeping economic sanctions could be raised but could only be decided by heads of government. The attitude of the Netherlands, which lost 193 people in the incident, would be critical, diplomats said.
The next scheduled summit of EU leaders is on August 30, although EU members could call for another emergency meeting.
“The impulse must come from The Hague because they have the moral mandate to demand a resolute, firm reaction. Everything depends on that,” one EU diplomat said.
“I think the events will serve to speed up sanctions, but as long as no new European council [of leaders] is called, ministers cannot go further even if they want to,” another EU diplomat said.
A summit of EU leaders on July 16, the day before the airliner was shot down, agreed the EU would sanction Russian companies that help to destabilise Ukraine and block new loans to Russia.
The wording was deliberately vague as the meeting agreed to target “entities, including from the Russian Federation, that are materially or financially supporting actions undermining or threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty”.
Adding companies to any sanctions list is more complicated than naming individuals because of the risk of legal challenges.
Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the EU would impose further sanctions on Russia if it were proved that Russia had been directly or indirectly responsible for bringing the plane down.
Analysts say it could be extremely difficult to prove responsibility for the disaster, which has been viewed as a potential turning point for international pressure to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.
Britain has said it is ready to pay the price of moving towards a new phase of EU economic sanctions because much bigger costs were at stake.
“Think of the economic hit... of allowing international borders to be ignored, of allowing airlines to be shot down – that’s a much greater economic hit for Britain and we’re not prepared to allow that to happen,” British Finance Minister George Osborne told BBC radio’s Today programme yesterday.