Russia: EU prolongs economic sanctions by six months

Summary:

The Council of the European Union decided on 19 December 2019 to extend economic sanctions targeting specific sectors of the Russian economy until 31 July 2020.

Further information:

This decision follwed an update earlier in the month on the state of implementation of the Minsk agreements, to which the decision on maintaining sanctions is linked.

The measures target the financial, energy and defence sectors, and the area of dual-use goods. They were originally introduced in July 2014 in response to Russia's actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine and strengthened in September 2014. The economic sanctions prolonged by this decision include:

• limiting access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for 5 major Russian majority state-owned financial institutions and their majority-owned subsidiaries established outside of the EU, as well as three major Russian energy and three defence companies;
• imposing an export and import ban on trade in arms;
• establishing an export ban for dual-use goods for military use or military end users in Russia;
• curtailing Russian access to certain sensitive technologies and services  that can be used for oil production and exploration.

The duration of the economic sanctions was linked to the complete implementation of the Minsk Agreements, which was foreseen to take place by the end of 2015. Since this did not happen, the sanctions remained in place.

News

Deutsche Welle, 12/12/2019: EU extends sanctions on Russia over Ukraine conflict https://p.dw.com/p/3Uimy

Reuters, 19/12/2019: EU extends economic sanctions against Russia for six months https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1YN1RD

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