How effective is EU response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

“We all saw the gruesome pictures from Bucha and other areas from which Russian troops have recently left. These atrocities cannot and will not be left unanswered.”

That was the promise made by the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen as she gave details of a raft of fresh sanctions targeting the Russian administration and its supporters on Tuesday.

The new sanctions will include a ban on buying Russian coal and on Russian ships entering EU ports, while the commission said it was working on banning oil imports too. A full transaction ban on four key Russian banks, including the country’s second-largest, VTB, has been announced.

The speed at which the sanctions were agreed is a reflection of the growing consensus across the EU.

That consensus is a reflection of the scale of the horror cause by Russia's brutal campaign in Ukraine and a recognition that internal divisions need to be set aside to allow the EU work with united purpose to pressure the regime of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Both the consensus and the desire to heal internal divisions have become features of the EU response since the war in Ukraine started at the end of February.

In this episode of In The News, Irish Times Europe Correspondent Naomi O'Leary discusses the mood of the EU and looks at how the existing sanctions have worked, and what impact the new ones might have.

She also focuses on the weekend’s Hungarian elections which were won in a landslide by incumbent Viktor Orban and assesses what the result might mean for cohesion across the EU.

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