European Union governments agreed yesterday that new economic sanctions on Russia will take effect today but held out the prospect of cancelling some or all of them next month if they believe a peace plan is working.
EU ambassadors agreed in principle to the new sanctions last Friday but implementation was held up by a dispute over whether they should take effect now or whether the EU should give more time for a ceasefire in Ukraine to take hold.
The ambassadors agreed at a meeting in Brussels that the new sanctions should take effect today.
Moscow will take comparable measures in response to new EU sanctions
“The ambassadors reserve the right to revise their decision at any time in response to events, on the basis of the opinions of relevant institutions,” one EU diplomat said.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said EU officials would conduct a review before the end of September of how a peace plan was working in Ukraine and, if Russia was complying, some or all sanctions could be lifted.
“If the situation on the ground so warrants,” he said, officials may submit to EU leaders “proposals to amend, suspend or repeal the set of sanctions in force, in all or in part”.
That enticement to Moscow to cooperate, while immediately imposing new measures, reflects impatience on the part of some leaders not to pull punches after less than a week of a truce but also concern among others, especially those most heavily dependent on Russian trade, not to provoke Moscow’s retaliation.
The breakthrough followed a phone call yesterday involving Van Rompuy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Cameron’s spokesman told reporters in London.
“[They spoke] to discuss the subject of sanctions against Russia in the context of Ukraine and agreement to proceed with the implementation of the sanction package that was agreed earlier in the week,” he said.
“If Russia genuinely reverses course then of course the European Union and others will return to the subject but there unfortunately has been very little evidence so far and that is why you have the European Union going ahead.”
Moscow would take comparable measures in response to new EU sanctions, Russian news agencies quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
That response could include caps on used car imports and other consumer goods, Kremlin economic aide Andrei Belousov was quoted by state-run RIA news agency as saying. But he added: “I hope common sense will prevail and we will not have to introduce those measures.”
The Ukraine conflict has provoked the worst crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War and deepened fears over possible disruption to Russian gas supplies to Europe.
Poland’s state-controlled gas importer PGNiG said yesterday it had received 45 per cent less natural gas than it requested from Russia’s Gazprom on Wednesday.