EU Introduces 11th Package Of Sanctions Against Russia

After four months of deliberations, the European Union agreed on the 11th package of sanctions against the Russian Federation, which for the first time in the EU's history includes the principle of extraterritorial restrictions.

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This means that the EU has given itself the right to impose sanctions against third countries and their businesses that ignore sanctions against Russia. The major purpose of the new package, according to comments made on Friday by the European Commission (EC) and the EU Council, is to force European corporations and the rest of the world to comply with the previous ten packages.

Since the EU members were concerned that this could complicate the EU's relations with the rest of the world, the EC stated that sanctions against third countries will be imposed only as a last resort. Brussels aims to use them as a threat in negotiations with foreign governments to force them to comply with sanctions.

The EU has included in the 11th package of sanctions a mechanism to combat their circumvention, which will allow introducing restrictions against third countries. 

"New anti-circumvention tool: this will allow the EU to restrict the sale, supply, transfer or export of specified sanctioned goods and technology to certain third countries whose jurisdictions are considered to be at continued and particularly high risk of circumvention. 

This new ‘anti-circumvention’ tool will be an exceptional and last resort measure when other individual measures and outreach by the EU to concerned third countries have been insufficient to prevent circumvention," the statement said.

According to the commission, it "welcomes the Council's adoption of an 11th package of sanctions against Russia. This package will ensure that EU sanctions against Russia are even better enforced and implemented, based on the lessons learned from implementation over the past year."