Brussels – The 16th EU sanctions package against Russia is worth at least EUR 228 billion. This is the amount of resources blocked and made impossible for Moscow to use, assures the Commissioner for Financial Services, Maria Luís Albuquerque. In reply to a parliamentary question from the benches of the Popular (EPP), she points out that it only affects the financial sector. With the set of measures approved at the end of February, “some EUR 28 billion of private assets have been frozen in the EU under individual measures, and more than EUR 200 billion of Russian Central Bank assets have been immobilized under sectoral sanctions.” Hence, the EUR 228 billion value is limited to only a part of one of the many EU packages, and not even the last one.
An additional sanctions package was added to the 16th package on May 20, with the European Commission working on an 18th package for which there are no details. “We have no set deadline” to close it and put it on the table, said Anitta Hipper, spokesperson for the EU’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas. “We want it to be solid and supported by all member states when the time comes to propose it in the Council,” she points out. In the Commission, “we are working,” and the new restrictive measures will arrive in due course.
According to initial rumors, the EU executive is considering restrictions on Nord Stream, the gas pipeline linking Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, further restrictions on the Russian banking sector, and a reduction in the price ceiling for crude oil.
