The head of the European Commission has called on the 27-nation bloc to ban oil imports from Russia in a sixth package of sanctions against Moscow.
Von der Leyen urged the EU’s member states to phase out imports of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year.
She also proposed that Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, and two other major banks be disconnected from the SWIFT international banking payment system.
The proposals need to be unanimously approved to take effect and are likely to be the subject of fierce debate. Von der Leyen conceded that getting all EU countries – some of which are landlocked and highly dependent on Russia for energy supplies – to agree on oil sanctions “will not be easy”.
The EU’s proposed sixth round of sanctions on Russia “notably makes no reference to Russian gas” Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, says.
“Why? Because in a sense it’s a bit like it is the elephant in the European living room – it is too big to be ignored but also so big that to do away with it straight away might have a catastrophic effect on economies across this continent,” Kane said.
“The financial aspect of the [proposed] sanctions is also fascinating, because until now the EU had been reticent to put sanctions on all the financial institutions in Russia.
“But today European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that Sberbank, which is one of the largest banks that has dealings with the EU, will find itself booted out of the SWIFT transaction system, Al Jazeera reports.
