Germany blocks new EU sanctions against Russia, has some concerns - dpa
Kyiv • UNN
Germany is blocking progress on the next package of EU sanctions against Russia due to concerns over measures to combat sanctions circumvention and certain restrictions.
The German government is blocking progress in negotiations on the next package of EU sanctions against Russia. According to diplomats in Brussels, German concerns and requests for changes are the main reason why the planning of sanctions has not yet been finalized, the German edition dpa reports, citing sources, UNN writes.
Details
Recently, there has been a feeling that Germany has become the new Hungary, the EU representative said, referring to the fact that the Budapest government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly postponed decisions on sanctions against Russia in the past.
The planned new EU punitive measures are aimed, in particular, at combating the circumvention of sanctions. "This means, for example, that the Russian arms industry can still use Western technology for weapons for the war against Ukraine," the publication points out.
In addition, it is planned to impose tough EU sanctions for the first time against Russia's billion-dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) business. According to diplomats, the European Commission wants to ban the use of ports such as Zeebrugge in Belgium to ship Russian LNG to third countries. This should lead to Russia being able to sell less liquefied natural gas due to a lack of transportation capacity and invest less money in its aggressive war, the newspaper notes.
"According to EU diplomats, Germany's doubts about these plans relate primarily to measures designed to make it more difficult to circumvent EU sanctions. Accordingly, the federal government is calling, among other things, for the planned rule on the liability of company branches in case of violations to be limited to certain goods or removed entirely. The reason for this is apparently the fear that otherwise German companies may be held liable for violating sanctions," the publication says.
In addition, according to dpa, "the federal government considers some reporting obligations unnecessary and wants to weaken a measure designed to further restrict the use of Russia's SFS system for exchanging electronic messages on financial transactions.
A representative of the German Permanent Representation to the EU did not want to comment on the negotiations at dpa's request. He noted that discussions between member states are confidential.
Initially, it was planned that an agreement on a new package of sanctions would be reached before the start of today's G7 summit of democratic industrialized countries.
"According to diplomats, a political agreement may not be reached until Friday at the earliest. After a meeting of EU permanent representatives in Brussels on Wednesday, it was said that a large central EU member state said without further explanation that it still considered some parts of the plans problematic," the newspaper points out.
The case of sanctions against Russia, as the publication notes, is not the first time that the German government's behavior has met with misunderstanding from its partners.
"Recently, for example, this prevented NATO from naming a new project for Ukraine the ‘NATO Mission to Ukraine,’" the newspaper writes. The federal government, as noted, took the position that the name could be misunderstood as meaning that the alliance wants to send soldiers to Ukraine. Therefore, it fears that the name could be used by Russia for propaganda purposes and against the alliance.
Proponents of the term "mission," however, argued that the Kremlin would somehow condemn the NATO project as aggression and use it for disinformation campaigns. "It is not clear that Germany is the only country that is going to the barricades over this - especially since the federal government says it fully supports these plans," the newspaper notes. The main goal of the project is reportedly for NATO to take over the international coordination of arms supplies and training for the Ukrainian armed forces in the future.
NATO is working on a mission for Ukraine - StoltenbergJune 6 2024, 10:49 AM • 70411 views
