European Parliament discontent with weak sanctions against Russia

The European Parliament approved on Thursday a resolution demanding increased sanctions pressure on Russia, reported the press service of the legislature.

The resolution states that Russia has managed to find loopholes to circumvent sanctions such as oil price caps, and the European Union is de facto letting Russian oil onto its market in the form of oil products made from it in India. The MEPs also noted that Russia continues to import western components through China, Turkey, UAE, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia; and countries such as Azerbaijan are likely whitewashing Russian gas for EU export.

The European Union is still one of the largest buyers of Russian fossil fuels, as it continues to buy pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas from Russia, and the embargo on oil and petroleum products contains many exceptions.

The European Parliament believes that the EU market should be completely closed for Russian fossil fuels.

The resolution proposes to significantly lower the price caps for Russian oil and oil products, to announce a full embargo on liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LNG and LPG) from Russia, as well as on oil products from other countries, if they are made from Russian oil.

The legislature wants the European Union to ban the transportation of Russian oil and LNG through the territory of the bloc and to set price and volume limits on the import of Russian and Belarusian fertilizers into the EU.

The European Parliament also supports a complete ban on Russian diamonds and the study of legal ways to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.

The latest 11th package of sanctions was adopted by the European Union in June 2023. Its basis was a new mechanism for combating the circumvention of sanctions through third countries. The bloc has been preparing the 12th sanctions package since September, but has not yet adopted it.

On September 8, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the counteroffensive is proceeding faster than the introduction of new sanctions.