Web Alert: EU extends sanctions against Russia for 6 months

The EU has prolonged its sanctions targeting the financial, energy and defence sectors of the Russian economy until 31 January 2019. These sanctions were initially implemented in July 2014 in response to Russia's actions 'destablising the situation in the Ukraine' and took the form of the so-called 'Minsk agreements'.

On 28-29 June 2018, President Macron and Chancellor Merkel provided an update to the European Council on the state of implementation of these agreements. As a result, the European council has unanimously agreed to renew existing economic sanctions linked to the Minsk agreements for a further 6 months.

The economic sanctions prolonged by this decision include:

⦁ Limiting access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for 5 major Russian majority state-owned financial institutions and their majority-owned subsidiaries established outside of the EU, as well as three major Russian energy and three defence companies;
⦁ Imposing an export and import ban on trade in arms;
⦁ Establishing an export ban for dual-use goods for military use or military end users in Russia;
⦁ Curtailing Russian access to certain sensitive technologies and services that can be used for oil production and exploration.

In addition to these economic sanctions, the EU has also imposed targeted individual restrictive measures (namely a visa ban and asset freeze) against 155 people and 38 entities until 15 September 2018.

The full official statement can be found here.