After the black smoke of the previous day, the countries of the European Union reached an agreement in Brussels on the twenty-first package of sanctions against Russia. The agreement introduces new measures against Moscow’s oil and financial sector, cryptocurrencies and the oil tankers of the so-called “shadow fleet”. But to reach unanimity it was necessary to scale back some of the initial proposals.
Among the most controversial points is the ban on entry into the European Union for Russian citizens who have served in the armed forces engaged in Ukraine. A measure with a strong political and symbolic value, on which Italy and France have however expressed a skeptical position.
The fear of Rome and Paris is that an automatic exclusion of hundreds of thousands of people could create the precedent for a broader ban on all Russian citizens in the future.
A perspective that would contrast with the line maintained by Italy so far. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has reiterated on several occasions that our country supports Ukraine, but does not consider Italy “at war with Russia” nor with the Russian population.
Because the ban is difficult to enforce
The problem is not just political. Italy and France also raised a practical question: how to establish whether a person actually fought in Ukraine? According to the proposal, the burden of controls would fall mainly on individual Member States. National authorities should therefore have verified, on a case-by-case basis, the military history of Russian citizens applying for a visa or attempting to enter European territory.
An investigation that is anything but simple. Not all Russian soldiers left voluntarily, many were mobilized or carried out support activities, while others may have defected or left the country to escape the war.
A ban formulated too broadly would thus also risk targeting Kremlin opponents, defectors, people mobilized against their will or citizens seeking protection in Europe. Then there is a doubt about the legal instrument chosen. According to Italy and France, any entry restrictions should be decided through the normal procedures for granting or denying visas, and not through a general mechanism included in economic sanctions.
In this way each request could be assessed individually, taking into account the role played by the person, the reasons for his presence in the armed forces and any involvement in war crimes. The proposal for an automatic ban has therefore been scaled down compared to the initial approach, leaving national governments with greater space for evaluation.
The new sanctions against Russian oil
The compromise on visas did not prevent the approval of the other measures in the package. The main intervention concerns the ceiling on the price of Russian oil, set at around 44 dollars a barrel. The mechanism prevents European companies from providing insurance, financing, shipping and other services when Russian crude is sold above the set price limit. The goal is to reduce Russia’s energy revenues, which represent a major source of financing for the war against Ukraine.
The package also adds new oil tankers to the lists of sanctioned vessels. These are the ships of the so-called “shadow fleet”, used by Moscow to export oil through companies with opaque ownership, insurance that is difficult to verify and frequent changes of flag.
The squeeze on banks and cryptocurrencies
The new measures also extend transaction bans against the Russian financial sector. Other banks and companies accused of helping Moscow circumvent European restrictions are being hit.
Part of the package concerns cryptocurrencies and digital platforms, which have become one of the tools used to transfer money outside the normal banking circuits.
Finally, new restrictions are foreseen on the export of technologies, components, metals and materials that could be used by the Russian military industry.
The compromise on liquefied gas
To obtain the green light from Greece it was also necessary to intervene on the measures relating to Russian liquefied natural gas. Athens had expressed strong reservations about the restrictions on operations carried out in European ports, fearing consequences for Greek shipping companies, which are particularly active in the international transport of LNG.
The text was therefore modified, providing for some exceptions and a transitional period. According to Greece, an immediate ban would have risked shifting the market to third-country companies without actually reducing Russia’s revenue.