The European Council, the co-executive body of the EU beside the European Commission, officially adopted the latest, eleventh package of sanctions against Russia, with the aim, among others, of preventing the circumvention of the sanctions previously imposed on Moscow, the body announced on Friday.
The measures allow for the sanctioning of countries that assist Russia in bypassing trade restrictions. According to the Council’s press release, the EU is further strengthening its two- and multilateral cooperation with countries to ensure compliance with sanctions rules. If this does not yield the desired results and the circumvention remains systematic, the EU will have the possibility to take exceptional and, ultimately, applicable measures against the countries concerned. The adopted measures also prohibit the transfer of goods and technologies through Russia that can be used by the Russian military for its own purposes or that support the Russian defence and security sector. Additionally, the Council added to the sanctions list another 87 entities that directly support Russia’s military and industrial complex in its war against Ukraine.
The EU heads of government have also agreed to suspend the broadcasting licences of five Russian media outlets in the EU.
According to the Council, the affected television channels and online magazines are ‘directly under Moscow’s control and engage in coordinated propaganda activities against the civil society of the EU and neighbouring countries, severely distorting and manipulating the facts.’ Last June, the EU banned the purchase, import, and acceptance of crude oil and petroleum products shipped from Russia within its territory. To reinforce this, the new package of sanctions prohibits entry into EU ports of ships engaged in ship-to-ship cargo transfers if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo is of Russian origin. ‘Our sanctions are already imposing a heavy burden on the Russian economy and financing for the war aggression. The package adopted on Friday increases the pressure on Russia and Putin’s war machinery,’ High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell commented following the adoption of the new package.
The Hungarian government has secured an exemption regarding the maintenance of Russian metro cars,
allowing the sanctioned Moscow-based company to deliver spare parts to Budapest. Thanks to the intervention of the government, a supplementary provision granting Hungary exemption in relation to the import and maintenance of components for the Budapest metro line M3 was included in the draft of the already approved eleventh package of sanctions.
According to Bloomberg, the Russian company Metrovagonmash will be able to continue exporting the necessary parts for the maintenance of trains to Hungary, as well as perform specific technical work on the metro cars. The issue concerning the maintenance of metro line 3 is not a new one. Metrovagonmash had been sanctioned once already, as part of the first package, back in March 2022. However, as the Russian company is the sole manufacturer of parts for the Budapest metro cars, there was a risk that the metro line M3 would eventually become inoperable. The problem has now been resolved, and the company is now allowed to deliver a total of 14 products to Hungary that have been subject to sanctions for over a year.
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