European Union countries have approved a 14th package of sanctions against Russia in retaliation for the war in Ukraine, diplomats said on Thursday (20), including a ban on re-exports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in EU waters.
Belgium, which holds the rotating EU presidency until July 1, said on Platform X that the package “maximizes the impact of existing sanctions by filling gaps.”
The countries debated the new measures for more than a month and ended up diluting one of the Commission’s proposals, which aimed to avoid even more deviations, at Germany’s request.
The abandoned measure would have forced subsidiaries of EU companies in third countries to contractually ban the re-export of their products to Russia. The EU is committed to stopping the flow of dual-use technology, such as washing machine chips, that could be used by Russia for military purposes.
An EU diplomat said Germany had asked for an impact assessment and the measure could be included later.
The transshipment ban is the first restriction that the bloc applies to LNG. However, gas market experts say the measure will have little impact as Europe still buys Russian gas and transhipments through EU ports to Asia only represent around 10% of total Russian LNG exports.
Source: CNN Brasil
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