The European Union (EU) is ready to bear the economic pain of imposing sanctions on Russia, which is likely to come mainly from higher energy prices, EU financial officials said on Friday.
EU leaders agreed last Thursday to impose new sanctions on Russia’s financial, energy and transport sectors, introduce export controls and blacklist more Russians for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
That means countries that sell their products to Russia will see their trade revenues drop, while Russia, Europe’s main energy supplier, could retaliate by reducing sales of gas, oil and coal to the EU.
“Of course, we will pay a price economically for this war,” said European economic commissioner Paolo Gentiloni as he began talks with EU finance ministers in Paris.
“We are going to discuss this today, how this war will affect our economic forecasts,” he declared. “I think it will have an impact, but the costs of reacting to this invasion, this violation of international law, are costs that we have to bear.”
The European Commission predicted in early February that economic growth in the 19 countries sharing the euro would be 4.0% this year, down from the 4.3% expected last November, due to more Covid-19 infections, bottlenecks in the supply chain and record inflation driven by energy prices.
“We will have a discussion about how we can protect our people and our economies, of course there are consequences in the energy sectors, for example, but we are prepared,” said German Finance Minister Christian Lindner.
Source: CNN Brasil

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