Dec 14, 2023 at 11:17 PM Update: 18 minutes ago
The European Union has agreed on a new sanctions package against Russia. The EU will, among other things, ban the import of Russian diamonds and take a stricter approach to circumventing existing sanctions.
The twelfth sanctions package is mainly intended to further dry up the flow of money to Russia. The country still makes a lot of money from the sale of diamonds, but the EU now wants to put an end to this.
The ban on Russian diamonds will take place in two phases. From January 1, the import of rough diamonds will be restricted. A few months later the polished diamonds are added.
Polishing often takes place in countries outside Russia. An improvement of the diamond tracking system has therefore been developed. This way, the origin of the diamonds can always be determined, even if the processing took place outside Russia.
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Avoiding previous sanctions should become more difficult
Also, the ceiling on the price of Russian oil should be better enforced to reduce the Kremlin’s revenues.
In addition, individuals and companies that helped Russians to avoid previous punitive measures through other countries will be placed on the new sanctions list. It is not known exactly which persons and companies are involved.
The EU member states reached an agreement after Austria was the last country to drop its objections. Vienna actually wanted Ukraine to remove the Raiffeisen Bank from its blacklist. But Austria has withdrawn that requirement. The Austrian bank is on the list because it continued to operate in Russia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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2023-12-14 22:17:00
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