The EU is on Saturday set to slam Moscow with a new raft of trade sanctions as Russia shows no sign of ending its war in Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday at the EU leaders’ summit in Versailles.
“Tomorrow, we will take a fourth package of measures to further isolate Russia and drain the resources it uses to finance this barbaric war,” von der Leyen said.
The new sanctions package is not yet published, but the Commission president outlined key sectors that will be hit.
“We will ban the export of any EU luxury goods from our countries to Russia, as a direct blow to the Russian elite,” she announced.
The bloc is also banning imports “of key goods in the iron and steel sector” from Russia. The EU expects the move to cut off “billions of export revenues” for Russia.
Von der Leyen added that the EU is “making sure that the Russian state and its elites cannot use crypto assets to circumvent the sanctions,” without providing details as to how the EU intends to do so.
Finally, the EU “will propose a big ban on new European investments across Russia’s energy sector.”
“This ban will cover all investments, technology transfers, financial services, etc., for energy exploration and production – and thus have a big impact on Putin,” von der Leyen said. The EU’s new sanctions on the energy front still fall short of British, American and Canadian moves to ban imports of Russian oil.
This announcement comes as the G7 countries — the EU, U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada — vowed that they’ll remove Russia’s trade privileges at the World Trade Organization and restrict its ability to get financing at the IMF and World Bank.
