EU Summit: Last-minute compromise on Russian oil embargo?

Disagreements over the Russian oil embargo are expected to overshadow the work of today’s EU Summit. After 5 packages of sanctions, the unity of Europeans is dangerously declining. The Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper quoted the German news agency DPA as saying that “the Commission has presented a new compromise proposal in the dispute over Russian oil. The Drusba pipeline (friendship) will be exempted from the embargo until further notice, allowing Russia to continue part of its business dealings with the EU. According to EU information, most recently “The pipeline supplies refineries to Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.”

Is the embargo “perforated”?

The current EU Summit is on the front page of the Handelsblatt newspaper. With the characteristic headline “Summit of the helpless”, the newspaper describes the rift caused by the strong resistance of some member states to the imposition of an embargo on Russian oil, noting that Europe is missing a historic opportunity. “With the search for a compromise, the embargo is becoming more and more perforated,” her columnist points out. “The European Commission has already proposed a five-year transition period for Hungary. Such a compromise would not be proof of European unity, but the opposite. It would emphasize how deep the rifts on the united front against Russia have become. “It gave Russia time to find new buyers and benefit from higher prices.” The newspaper’s columnist recalls the proposal of the US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen that instead of an embargo, customs duties should be imposed on Russian oil and this money should be given for the relief of consumers or to support Ukraine.

And στη dead in the list of so-called terrorists

Turkey is once again honored in the German press on the occasion of new assurances by Recep Tayyip Erdogan that it will not consent to the entry of countries into the alliance that supports terrorism, such as Sweden and Finland. The Frankfurter Runsdschau describes the difficult road between the two countries. “Turkey’s consent depends on a condition,” writes one columnist. “Sweden should hand over an alleged terrorist. Only then will Erdogan be willing to talk about it again. “He was exiled to Sweden. He had already been imprisoned in Turkish prisons in 1971 for translating a report by Amnesty International. In 1980, after the coup, he published many books, including on the Armenian Genocide.”

The newspaper cites its own information, according to which, the 74-year-old is on a list of 40 other names of alleged terrorists. “Turkey sets an ultimatum that without their extradition, Sweden and Finland will not join NATO. As early as 2019, the Swedish Supreme Court rejected Ragip Zarakoglu’s extradition. He told a radio station that he was not supposed to The 74-year-old was convicted in Turkey for lecturing to the Union of Kurdistan Communities his act was supported by a terrorist organization “.

But also the tabloid Bild with a wide readership writes that “Erdogan is playing poker with the enlargement of NATO to the north”. He recalls a previous revelation by the newspaper that among the names of “terrorists” published by Turkish state television is Dr. Mehmet Sirak Bolgin. “Only here there is a problem because he died 7 years ago. Bilgin worked at the University Hospital of Uppsala as a radiologist and also published texts in Kurdish. In 2017 he died after a long illness” writes the columnist of the German newspaper.

Irini Anastassopoulou

Source: Deutsche Welle