Moscow, Europe Brief News – The European Union (EU) declared intention to impose further sanctions against Russia amid its continued war in Ukraine.
“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine continues unabated. Therefore, we are proposing today to tighten our hard-hitting EU sanctions against the Kremlin, enforce them more effectively and extend them until January 2023,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a statement on Friday.
“Moscow must continue to pay a high price for its aggression,” she added.
The proposal from the commission, which draws up international sanctions for the bloc’s 27 countries, will be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday.
The EU has so far approved six packages of sanctions on Russia with the last one passed in June that imposed a ban on most Russian oil imports.
The move on gold exports fulfils a decision agreed upon by the world’s most industrialised nations at a G7 meeting in late June in which EU members Germany, France and Italy took part. The United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Japan have already imposed the ban.
Earlier Thursday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna urged the EU to adopt new sanctions against Russia.
“We hope the next, seventh package of sanctions will have a strong restrictive potential and will be taken without further delay and as soon as possible,” Stefanishyna told reporters before an informal meeting of EU affairs ministers held by the Czech presidency of the 27-nation bloc in Prague.
