The European Union has reached an agreement on an 18th sanctions package against Russia over its war in Ukraine, with a raft of measures aimed at dealing further blows to Russia’s oil and energy industry.
Its latest sanctions package on Russia will lower the G7’s price cap for crude oil to $47.6 per barrel, diplomats told Reuters.
“The EU just approved one of its strongest sanctions package against Russia to date,” said the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on X.
“We will keep raising the costs, so stopping the aggression becomes the only path forward for Moscow,” added Kallas.
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The package will see about 20 more Russian banks cut off from the international payments system SWIFT and face a full transaction ban. It includes sanctions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines to ensure they are not brought back into operation in future and restrictions on Russian petroleum refined in third countries.
The price cap on Russian oil, which is currently set at $60 per barrel, will be set dynamically at $15 below market rates moving forward.
The bloc’s envoys backed the sanctions on Friday morning. The package is set to be approved later on Friday at a meeting of EU ministers in Brussels.
Other measures include sanctions on dozens more vessels in Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers, bringing the total above 400, as well as on several entities and traders that work with the covert fleet.
The package had been held up for weeks by Slovakia as it was seeking relief from an EU plan to phase out Russian fossil fuels. Prime minister Robert Fico announced on Thursday that he was lifting his country’s veto after accepting guarantees provided by the European Commission.—Reuters/ Bloomberg
