EU mobilizes for more sanctions against Bucha massacre, but without touching gas

20,000 million euros. This is what Russia has received from the European Union since February 24, the day Russian President Vladimir Putin began invading Ukraine by purchasing fossil fuels: 9,600 million gallons of gas; According to an accountant at the Center for Energy and Fresh Air Research (CREA), 9,000 million oil and 700 million coal.

This is the 20 billion euros that Russia will use to finance its invasion of Ukraine, but it also shows how dependent the EU and some other countries are more than Russia on Russian fossil fuels to heat their homes, drive cars and maintain factories. running.

And there are 20,000 million that Brussels has sought to stop by pursuing alternative suppliers – such as the liquefied natural gas agreement with the United States – to accelerate the emancipation of Russian fuel; But that even pictures of the Bucha massacre did not become a destructive weapon in stopping the invasion of Ukraine.

But energy sanctions, the first energy sanctions announced six weeks before the start of the Russian invasion, will not affect for the time being the fuel that makes the most money in Russia and on which Germany is most dependent: gas.

How the EU works

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, reminded the European Parliament this Tuesday that the EU has two pillars, intergovernmental and community. But what Borrell did not say is that the intergovernmental pillar, the 27 EU governments, is the one that sets the guiding principles. And these guidelines, by virtue of the unanimity rule, are celebrated by those who have the least ambition. That is, the EU has 27 governments that go to those who want the least.

And it happens from February 24th. After Russia invaded Ukraine and Germany did not even want to hear about the withdrawal of Russian banks from the Swift transaction system, what was finally done, for example. “Germany has been dragging on from the beginning,” diplomatic sources said, recalling the cost of paralyzing Nord Stream 2, led by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and promising to supply Russian gas to Germany via the Baltics and Baltics. Thus avoiding the tax on the crossing of Ukraine.

And now it is with gas. More than 600 million people enter Russia every day in exchange for the gas it supplies to the European Union. And the German or Hungarian attitude, for example, is not the same as the Spanish or Portuguese attitude. Just like sanctions on luxury goods do not have the same boomerang effect in all EU countries. Just like the closure of the ports announced this Tuesday for Russian ships does not affect countries that have coasts, as well as those that do not operate.

Thus, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen this Tuesday announced something unprecedented in the cascade of sanctions: the energy embargo. But he did it with the least-demanded fuel by the EU, which is moving towards green energy at an accelerated and forced pace: coal.

“We will impose a ban on the import of coal from Russia, worth 4 billion euros a year,” said von der Leyen. “This will reduce another important source of income for Russia.

In addition, several EU countries, including Spain, have announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats from their territories as a form of protest against the actions of the Russian army. The Spanish government has said that 27 people at the Russian embassy, ​​including the ambassador, have seven days to leave Spain “because of the unbearable images of the massacre of civilians.” Germany, France, Italy or Denmark are among the European countries that have made the same decision in recent days over the expulsion of more than 200 diplomats and other staff of the Russian embassy. Since the invasion of Ukraine, at least 325 Russian embassy staffers and staff have been expelled from the countries where they performed their duties.

Travel to Kyiv

The President of the European Commission and the Head of European Diplomacy will visit Kiev this week to meet with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in support of the country, after the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metzola, also left. . Zelensky once again insists on imposing sanctions on gas purchases, giant Gazprom and banks related to the gas business: Gazprombank and Sberbank. On March 15, the Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki; Slovenia, Janez Janანსa; And the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala, traveled together to Kyiv, where they also met to express support for Zelensky’s resistance to Ukraine.

Zelensky has already called for more commercial sanctions on Russia at the age of 27 at the last EU Council to end the daily transfers of millionaires to the Kremlin. Moreover, he criticized that the sanctions were delayed: “If it had been preventive, Russia would not have gone to war. We are thankful for the crash of Nord Stream 2, but it is also late. If there was a time, Russia would not have created a gas crisis. And now we are preparing for Ukraine’s entry into the European Union. Please do not be late, please. You see that Ukraine should be in the EU in the near future.

Von der Leyen, announcing a coal embargo on Tuesday, said the oil embargo might be on its way: “That’s not all. “We are working on additional sanctions, including oil imports.”

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warns: “Moscow is not giving up on its ambitions in Ukraine. In the coming weeks, we expect a new Russian push in eastern and southern Ukraine, trying to capture the entire Donbass and build a land bridge with the occupied Crimea. This is a crucial stage in the war. ”

France in the campaign

The coal and oil approach, where there is no gas, is supported by countries such as Germany and Austria, which are heavily dependent on Russian gas, and France, which is in an election campaign in which a boomerang-cutting effect on Russian gas could have a booming effect. Aggravates the campaign of President Emmanuel Macron. This is what his finance minister, Bruno Le Mer, explained to Ecofin on Tuesday: Sanctions on coal and oil. “We are ready to implement sanctions, oil and coal are an opportunity, and we must negotiate and build unity in the 27 member states.”

In the same vein, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said: “We need to increase pressure on Putin without weakening ourselves. Our goal is to become independent of energy imports from Russia as soon as possible and to distinguish between gas, coal and oil, each of which must be treated differently, as replacement requires different periods. “Strict sanctions should be in place, but gas will not change in the short term.”

At the age of 27, they found it difficult to start with sanctions. As the days went by and Russian bombings intensified, the EU tightened its grip on Putin. But now it faces decisions that could further worsen costs for Russia, such as gas supplies, but also in some European countries. For this reason, the EU is mobilized in the face of the Bucha massacre and announces additional sanctions, but so far, without touching the gas.