04 mei 2022
09:54
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EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed in the European Parliament that a full embargo on Russian oil will be put in place before the end of the year. She also promises more money and an “ambitious recovery plan for Ukraine.”
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Ursula von der Leyen lifted a corner of the veil in the European Parliament on Wednesday morning. the sixth European sanctions package for Russia hangs. The European Commission approved that package on Tuesday evening. The EU ambassadors are discussing the package this morning. A second meeting Thursday afternoon is scheduled if necessary.
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Von der Leyen confirms that there will be a complete ban on imports of oil from Russia, whether through ships or pipelines. This will be done gradually to limit the impact on global oil markets and enable alternatives. For crude oil, the oil embargo should be in place in six months. The deadline for refined products is the end of this year.
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In addition, three major Russian banks are also being expelled from the international payment system SWIFT. Transactions with Sberbank, the largest Russian bank, are becoming impossible. The other two banks are numbers six and seven, Agricultural Bank and Moscow Credit Bank. According to von der Leyen, this “completes the removal of the Russian financial sector from the global financial system.”
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There will also be an export ban on chemicals that can be used for chemical warfare. von der Leyen did not mention this in her speech.
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Butchers of Butcha
Europe puts more Russians on its sanctions list. The senior officers and people who committed war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Butha are on the list. They are responsible for the massacres in and around Butsha before the Russians withdrew from the area north of Kiev. The list also includes those responsible for the ‘inhuman occupation of the city of Mariupol’.
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The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill is also reportedly on the sanction list. He strongly supports President Vladimir Putin’s ‘holy war’ against Ukraine. The patriarch has a great influence on the Russian believers.
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The Russian TV channels we are banning are Putin’s mouthpieces and are aggressively spreading the lies and propaganda.
Ursula von der Leyen
President of the European Commission
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Propaganda
What is new is that the Commission is also banning three Russian television stations from the European airwaves. “They are no longer allowed to distribute their content in Europe, whether that is via cable, satellite, the internet or the smartphone.” It is still unclear which media are involved, but von der Leyen calls them “Putin’s mouthpiece who spread the lies and the propaganda in an aggressive way”. Earlier, the Union banned two other TV stations that are considered Moscow propaganda machines, RT and Sputnik.
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European accountants, consultants and spin doctors are no longer allowed to offer their services to the Kremlin.
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Money for Ukraine
“We want Ukraine to win the war. But we already want to set the conditions for Ukraine’s success after the war,” von der Leyen said. The Commission previously proposed to remove import duties on Ukraine’s exports to the Union. But Ukraine needs a lot of money: 5 billion euros a month to run the country and pay for pensions, wages and basic services. We cannot handle that with Europe alone, said von der Leyen.
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Moreover, a second phase awaits reconstruction, which will cost hundreds of billions of euros, economists estimate. Von der Leyen proposes a major recovery package for Ukraine. Those multi-billion investments will be linked to reforms, such as the fight against corruption, and will “radically upgrade production capacity in Ukraine.” For von der Leyen, this could ‘pave the way for a future of Ukraine in the Union’.
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