On 21 December 2017, the Council prolonged economic sanctions targeting specific sectors of the Russian economy until 31 July 2018.
This decision follows an update from President Macron and Chancellor Merkel to the European Council of 14 December 2017 on the state of implementation of the Minsk agreements. The duration of the sanctions was linked to the complete implementation of the Minsk agreements by the European Council on 19 March 2015, which was foreseen to take place by 31 December 2015. Since this did not happen, and given that the Minsk agreements have still not been fully implemented, the Council has extended the sanctions by a further six months.
The Council formalised this decision today by written procedure and, in line with the rule for all such decisions, unanimously.
The measures were originally introduced on 31 July 2014 for one year in response to Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine. They were strengthened in September 2014. They target the financial, energy and defence sectors, and the area of dual-use goods.
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
In addition to these economic sanctions, several EU measures are also in place in response to the crisis in Ukraine including:
- targeted individual restrictive measures, namely a visa ban and an asset freeze, currently against 150 people and 38 entities until 15 March 2018;
- restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, currently in place until 23 June 2018.
More – see official website of European Council
