Brussels, Jun. 1, (dpa/GNA) - EU leaders said Tuesday they were preparing to nail down the technicalities of a deal to sanction Russian oil imports while grappling with the wider fallout of the Ukraine war, as they completed a two-day summit in Brussels.
After weeks of discussion, the 27 EU member states had reached an agreement on the far-reaching boycott of Russian oil as part of a sixth EU sanctions package on Moscow.
The agreement would lead to “Russia paying for its activities with significant consequences,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a post-summit press conference on Tuesday.
The compromise package targets Russian oil delivered by sea, but not deliveries via pipeline, thus exempting oil transported to several Eastern and Central European countries by the giant Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline. The compromise came after heavy lobbying from Hungary.
Discussion of the technical and legal detail of the deal will continue in the coming days, following weeks of deadlocked talks.
With a potential crisis avoided, EU officials and leaders were assessing the next steps to take but remained hesitant about tackling a ban on Russian gas imports.
A full embargo on Russian energy imports was “not a subject” for discussion, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said as he arrived at the meeting on Tuesday, despite calls from Baltic countries for it to become one.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, an advocate for a full embargo on all Russian energy imports, said that realistically speaking, the gas would not be part of the seventh package of sanctions on Russia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was important to assess attempted “circumventions” of existing sanctions and to potentially “close loopholes.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the EU for its latest sanctions package on Moscow, while also renewing calls on Brussels for even harsher measures to be imposed on Russia.
A seventh package would be needed once the terms of the sixth had been implemented, Zelensky said in a video address released on Tuesday evening.
“At the end of the day, there should be no significant economic ties at all between the free world and the terrorist state,” he stressed.
Under the planned EU oil boycott Russia would be losing “tens of billions of euros” that could no longer be used to finance terror, Zelensky said but added that a total ban on Russian oil imports would also assist EU countries in their transition to renewable energies.
Amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and rising energy prices, EU leaders approved a joint statement agreeing to better prepare “for possible major supply disruptions” by “agreeing on bilateral solidarity agreements” and filling up storage facilities ahead of the winter.
Von der Leyen said that gas storage facilities across the bloc were currently 41% full, an increase of 5% on the same period in 2021.
A looming food security crisis driven by Russia’s blocking of Ukrainian grain exports and leading to surging prices globally was also a major preoccupation on the second day of the summit.
“The situation is worrying and the worst may be yet to come if the current trend continues,” said the chairperson of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, who addressed EU leaders via video link on Tuesday, according to a transcript of his speech seen by dpa.
Ukraine’s grain exports dropped from on average 5 million tons per month to between 200,000 and 1 million tons per month, von der Leyen said.
Talks focused on strategies to export Ukrainian grain currently stuck in ports and warehouses, with dedicated land and sea corridors proposed to facilitate exports.
European Council President Charles Michel stressed that the EU supported UN efforts to restart the export of Ukrainian grain by sea, but remained cautious, saying the bloc was “not certain it will work.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, was optimistic about the issue. “I hope that the next few days and weeks will resolve this situation,” he said.
GNA