Russia facing 8th set of EU sanctions

The Permanent Representatives of the 27 Member States of the European Union reached a political agreement on Wednesday morning, during the regular meeting of COREPER, on the eighth EU sanctions package against Russia, the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU announced in a tweet.

The package includes a price cap on Russian oil that can be transported to third countries, by ships registered in EU countries or connected to member states. Cyprus, Greece and Malta had expressed concerns and had pointed out that this measure should not lead to the traffic being diverted to countries that will not apply this measure (which had been agreed to be applied by the countries participating in the G7).

“Ambassadors reached a political agreement on new sanctions against Russia - a strong EU response to Putin's illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories,” according to the Czech Presidency’s tweet.

“Written procedure follows, sanctions enter into force on publication in the Official Journal” the Presidency added.

In a series of tweets, the Presidency explained that the package contains:

- “Prohibition of maritime transport of Russian oil to third countries above the oil price cap and a ban on related services”,

- “Extended import ban on goods - steel products, wood pulp, paper, machinery and appliances, chemicals, plastic, cigarettes, etc.”,

- “Ban on providing IT, engineering and legal services to Russian entities, further tech-export ban” and

- “Expansion of the sanctions regime to Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, new criteria for sanctions circumvention and new listings”.