EU May Have Reached Sanctions 'Limit,' Expert Says
The EU may not be able to ramp up its sanctions pressure on Russia beyond the measures it has already taken, said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, a foreign policy expert with the German Marshall Fund. Although the EU has imposed financial sanctions against Russian banks and oligarchs and imposed export restrictions on certain strategic goods, she said the most impactful sanctions would target the Russian energy sector.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
“It seems that the EU has pretty much reached the limit of what it can actually do, because if we really wanted to act seriously and cause pain to Russia, it would obviously be a question of limiting our imports of gas and oil,” she said during a March 23 event hosted by the think tank. “This is something that countries like Germany said they cannot do -- Italy and other countries as well.”
The U.S. and its European allies plan to announce a new round of Russia-related sanctions actions today, including measures meant to clamp down on sanctions evasion tactics (see 2203220065).