On Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the measures that still need approval from all 27 EU member states. The bloc has already imposed four rounds of sanctions aimed at punishing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government for ordering an invasion of Ukraine.
“We have all seen the horrific images from Bucha and other areas from which Russian forces have recently left,” she said in a statement. These atrocities cannot and will not be left unanswered.”
“We will impose a ban on the import of coal from Russia worth 4 billion euros,” he said [$4.4 billion] in the year “.
If the coal ban is approved, it would be the first coordinated EU ban on the massive energy exports that support the Russian economy and generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue each year.
European Union leaders have so far been unable to agree on targeting Russian energy because of the risks it poses to the region’s economy at a time of rising natural gas and fuel prices. But the mood seems to have changed this week. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he would support a blanket ban on imports of Russian oil and coal, and Germany indicated on Tuesday that it might support a coal ban.
“Russia is waging a cruel and merciless war in Ukraine, not only against its brave forces but also against its civilian population,” von der Leyen told reporters. It is important to keep pressure on Putin and the Russian government at this point.
The European Commission chief also said officials are working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports from Russia.
Russia was the world’s third largest coal exporter in 2020, after Australia and Indonesia, according to the International Energy Agency. It is also the main exporter of thermal coal to the European Union, before China and South Korea.
European coal prices have already risen in anticipation of possible EU sanctions, said Henning Gloustein, director of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group.
“Coal sanctions will make life more difficult for European utilities, which consume a lot of Russian coal, but energy companies can deal with that, and politicians are finding this sale easier publicly because it meshes well with the overall and accelerating green transition in the European Union,” he said. For CNN Business.
Anna Cuban contributed to this article.
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