The U.K. and Welsh governments are hosting a delegation of economic development leaders from Indiana until March 2 as part of the U.K-Indiana Memorandum of Understanding on economic cooperation and trade relations, the Department for International Trade announced. Meetings are focusing on clean energy, women's economic employment and "levelling-up," it said.
The EU adopted its 10th sanctions package on Russia, the European Council announced. The restrictions include imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on another 87 individuals and 34 entities, as well as various trade sanctions, including additional export bans on critical technology and industrial goods.
The EU and the U.K. reached an agreement this week on post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, potentially ending a dispute that has hung over both sides since the U.K. left the bloc in 2020 (see 2211090023). The Windsor Framework deal, which covers new “arrangements” on customs rules and trade, will allow for the “free-flowing movement of goods” between Northern Ireland and Britain and “removes any sense of a border in the Irish Sea within the U.K.,” the U.K. said in a Feb 27 news release. The deal avoids a hard border between the U.K. and Ireland, an EU member, which could have complicated a range of trade issues.
The U.K. removed Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi from its Libya sanctions regime, in a Feb. 24 notice. Al-Mahmoudi is the former prime minister of Libya in Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government. The Tunisian government extradited him to Libyan authorities in 2012, and he was released in 2019 for health reasons.
The EU renewed its "terrorist list," the sanctions regime that sets an asset freeze on individuals and entities "with a view to combatting terrorism," the European Council announced late last week. Sanctions currently apply to 13 individuals and 21 groups and entities on the list. The list is reviewed at least every six months.
A group of European countries not in the EU aligned with the bloc's recent decision to extend the sanctions regime against individuals and entities related to the situation in Tunisia for another 12 months, the European Council announced last week. The restrictions are now set to lapse Jan. 31, 2024. The countries of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway also imposed the decision, the council said.
The U.K. unfurled a new round of sanctions on Russia to mark the one-year anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced. The sanctions ban the export of "every item Ukraine has found Russia using on the battlefield to date" and place individual restrictions on another 92 individuals and entities. Sanctions target parties connected to state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom and Russian President Vladimir's Putin's closest allies, including his former chief of security and the CEO of Nord Stream 2, the FCDO said.
The Netherlands recently released a "non-paper" covering ways to boost its sanctions enforcement. The proposals include elevating information sharing between EU member states, establishing an EU point of contact and platform for sanctions circumvention data, using diplomatic tools to increase sanctions compliance and fight circumvention, and expanding the EU's designation criteria to include individuals and entities in third-party countries involved in sanctions circumvention for the use of products on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The EU urged all U.N. member states to fully implement Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea following its launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile Feb. 18 and short-range ballistic missiles Feb. 20. In a Feb. 23 statement, the European Council said it will work with its partners to restrict the flow of "finance, knowledge and components that the DPRK could use to support its unlawful weapons programme."
China dropped the need to declare on customs declaration forms for imported goods that "preventive disinfection has been implemented," the General Administration of Customs announced Feb. 21, according to an unofficial translation. The change to the declaration forms will take effect on March 1.