The European Union has agreed on a partial ban on Russian oil imports, according to European Council chief Charles Michel.
Michel said the deal cut off "a huge source of financing" for the Russian war machine.
The embargo covers Russian oil brought in by sea, allowing a temporary exemption for imports delivered by pipeline, a move that was crucial to bring landlocked Hungary on board a decision that required consensus.
The 27-nation organisation has spent weeks bargaining over a complete ban on Russian oil, but encountered stubborn resistance from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who said an embargo would destroy his country’s economy.
Ursula Von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive branch, said the punitive move will “effectively cut around 90% of oil imports from Russia to the EU by the end of the year.”
The remaining 10 percent will be temporarily exempt from sanctions so that Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which are all connected to the southern leg of the pipeline, continue to have access to fuel they cannot easily replace.
“Russia has chosen to continue its war in Ukraine. Tonight, as Europeans, united and in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, we are taking new decisive sanctions,” French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, responded to the EU’s decision on Twitter, saying: “As she rightly said yesterday, Russia will find other importers.”
The new package of sanctions will also include an asset freeze and travel ban on individuals, while Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, will be excluded from SWIFT, the major global system for financial transfers from which the EU previously banned several smaller Russian banks. Three big Russian state-owned broadcasters will be prevented from distributing their content in the EU.
Across Europe, the cost of living crisis is hitting a majority of people with increased food, fuel and electricity bills.
Even before the war in Ukraine, the price of energy was rising and costs at the fuel pump were starting to sting consumers.
Europe is the biggest buyer of Russian energy. Russian crude accounted for 27% of the bloc's imports in 2021, according to Eurostat. That's around 2.4 million barrels per day, data from the International Energy Agency shows. About 35% of that was delivered via pipelines to the bloc, according to the IEA.
