EU leaders agreed on Thursday (December 16) to coordinate with allies to impose sanctions on Russia in the event of further military aggression by Ukraine. The question remains to define what kind of response an upgrade will trigger.
The European Commission Ursula von der Lein said after the meeting: “Our concerns about Russia’s military build-up on the eastern border of Ukraine are well known, and our position is very clear.”
“Don’t doubt,” she said. “If Russia is to take action against Ukraine, the European Union will be able to impose sanctions that may be costly. We have already done our work in this regard,” she added.
According to the final Summit conclusionThe leaders of the European Union threatened Russia that if further military aggression against Ukraine is carried out, Russia will face “huge consequences”, “serious costs” and internationally coordinated sanctions.
EU sources also stated that the EU has been negotiating with the United States on future sanctions coordination in video conferences “almost every week” and will work closely with NATO.
“The Council of Europe reaffirms its full support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the EU leader said.
Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
The document added: “Any further aggression against Ukraine will have huge consequences and heavy costs, including restrictive measures coordinated with partners.”
Sanctions options
An EU source said that the general view is that the EU’s diplomatic language has been strengthened and that “restrictive measures” have opened the door to “a series of options”.
Ukrainian President Zelensky recently stated that although most EU leaders understand and support Ukraine’s position in the conflict, he feels that the European powers refuse to take preemptive actions against Russia and instead threaten to respond in the event of military action. Frustrated.
The summit declaration itself did not specify what measures might be taken, although EU officials and diplomats have included sanctions on Russia’s financial and economic sectors as part of the options in the past few days.
A resolution of the European Parliament this week called for the suspension of the SWIFT system in the framework of future Russian sanctions. The SWIFT system is a messaging network used by 11,000 banks in 200 countries to make cross-border payments.
Some people call it a “nuclear option” because it will be an unprecedented move, only used once in 2012 to disconnect an Iranian bank after it was blacklisted by the West due to a dispute over the Iranian nuclear agreement.
An EU diplomat confirmed that the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s “option document” on specific sanctions has not been submitted to EU leaders, adding that “they agree to this. Because the time and place are wrong”.
Defining aggression
One uncertainty in the language of the communiqué remains whether the EU can agree on a definition that constitutes “any further aggression” by Russia.
EU diplomats told EURACTIV that night that this sentence is unlikely to be further pre-defined, because there is no potential threat since then, so the basic principle is this.
An EU diplomat told EURACTIV: “You don’t want pre-emptive restrictions on the table before things happen.”
“Otherwise, what else can you do? What if there are no Russian troops moving, but some green villains start to cause riots in Donbass?”
However, some people worry that this will also open the door to any promises to “sneak up” in a mixed situation, and Ukraine and some eastern member states worry.
EU diplomats confirmed to EURACTIV that distrust of Germany may be regressed from the discussion on the use of measures in this situation.
“I still think that if this happens, even Germany must become serious,” a Western European diplomat assured.
Which side is France and Germany on?
In their conclusion on Thursday night, EU leaders also reiterated their commitment to the so-called “Normandy model” peace talks led by France and Germany.
“The Council of Europe encourages diplomatic efforts and supports the Normandy model to achieve the full implementation of the Minsk Agreement,” the leader said.
However, Moscow has not participated in any form of high-level meetings in recent months.
According to the OSCE field monitoring mission, the initiative has so far failed to resolve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and ceasefire violations and skirmishes continue every day.
However, sideline diplomacy and the mandatory language in Thursday’s summit documents cannot conceal the possible inconsistencies of some member states with regard to the location of the dialogue with Russia.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Schultz said at a joint press conference after the summit that Ukraine will also take action in order to make progress on the Normandy model.
“We believe that President Zelensky needs to make recommendations to make progress in this area,” he said.
At the same time, Schultz faced calls from some EU leaders to ask Moscow to terminate the Beixi 2 project.
Although Scholz emphasized that this is a “private sector project” that only needs to address “details”, Macron said that the discussion is “nothing new” and that the future of the pipeline has nothing to do with “current issues.”
