EU Council Prolonged Economic Sanctions against Russia by Six Months

The sanctions imposed in summer, 2014 due to the destabilization of the situation in Ukraine were prolonged due to insufficient progress of the Minsk agreements implementation, says the EU Council. The European Union extended economic sanctions against Russia until July 31, 2019. EU representatives unanimously adopted this decision, says the EU Council website on Friday, December 21. There has been made no progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements to resolve the situation in the east of Ukraine. The sanctions were introduced on 31 July 2014 in connection with the “actions of Russia destabilizing the situation in Ukraine”, and strengthened in September 2014. In March 2015, the sanctions were linked to the Minsk agreements, which were originally planned to be implemented before December 31, 2015. Since this did not happen, the sanctions have remained in place. The measures target the financial, energy and defence sectors, and the area of dual-use goods. In particular there is limit access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for major Russian majority state-owned financial institutions, an export and import ban on trade in arms, curtailing Russian access to certain sensitive technologies and services that can be used for oil production and exploration. Another EU sanctions against Russia In addition to these economic sanctions, several EU measures are also in place in response to the crisis in Ukraine including, such as targeted individual restrictive measures, namely a visa ban and an asset freeze, currently against 164 people and 44 entities until 15 March 2019 and restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, currently in place until 23 June 2019. Source: DW