The European Union is poised to tighten its screws on Russia with the decision to impose an embargo on Russian oil after weeks of intensive talks. This happens to be the bloc’s most far-reaching effort to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine which has entered its third month. Neither side, incidentally, is poised for victory or defeat. The Kremlin will be deprived of a major source of revenue. Equally, the initiative will reinforce Europe’s independence from Russian fuel.
The proposed compromise was reached at a summit in Brussels, the EU headquarters. Negotiators were forced to accept Hungary’s demand that it be indefinitely exempted from the measure, indeed the fallout of Europe’s economic reprisal. The exemption will scarcely have an impact on the EU’s fresh sanctions on Russia.
The small size of Hungary and its continued pur- chase of Russian oil offers little financial benefit for the Kremlin. For all that, there is little doubt that Hungary has deviated from the EU in the context of Russia, not the least because of the close political links between Moscow and Budapest.
The agreement has followed weeks of fraught negotiations. It envisages a ban on all Russian oil transported to the EU by tankers, even while permit- ting pipeline delivery of crude oil. Actually, however, this implies an outright ban on two-thirds of all oil imported into the EU from Russia. This is based on the draft agreement that EU leaders are scheduled to adopt very shortly.
Russia is the world’s third-largest exporter of oil. Member-states of the European Union are spending around $23 billion every month on Russian crude ever since the war started at February and oil prices surged. The Kremlin will suffer a severe economic blow. Equally, the collective reprisal on the part of Europe will come at a heavy economic cost for the Western powers, which depend hugely on Russian fossil fuels.
The EU receives about 27 per cent of its crude oil imports from Russia and a higher share of its oil products, and shells out billions of dollars every month. Diplomats, who have been directly involved in the talks, said that Germany which receives Russian oil via the pipeline said it would verbally commit to cutting that off by the end of this year. Slovakia and the Czech Republic are also expected to offer verbal assurances that they would shut down the supply via pipeline on the basis of an expeditious arrangement. Initially, the European Union had pro- posed a ban on all Russian oil by the end of the year.
Not wholly unrelated is President Biden’s assurance that the United States will not send rocket systems that can reach Russia. Monday’s comments fol- lowed reports that the Biden administration was preparing to send advanced long-range rocket systems to Kiev for its fight against Russia.