First restrictions against Russian gas, but also protections for companies (including Italian ones) that ended up in the crosshairs of Moscow’s reprisals. Meeting yesterday in Luxembourg, the European Union Foreign Ministers yesterday unanimously approved a new package of economic sanctions against Russia, the fourteenth since the start of the war in Ukraine, with the aim of hitting sectors ranging from energy to finance, to the point of making it more difficult to circumvent the measures adopted previously.
The regulatory text also introduces “the principle according to which companies active in Russia can take legal action to request compensation for any retaliatory actions”, an issue which saw our country at the forefront in the preparation of the package, announced the deputy prime minister and head of the Farnesina Antonio Tajani, speaking of the “duty to protect the 200 Italian companies” that still operate in the country, in particular in light of the close cases involving the Russian branches of Ariston and Unicredit. The former was temporarily nationalized at the end of April, ending up in the orbit of a subsidiary of the giant Gazprom; the second, however, following a ruling by a court in St. Petersburg, saw some accounts and properties worth almost 463 million seized a month ago, part of a judicial dispute that arose in the wake of the effects of the restrictions EU. There are no compensations, but companies will be able to take action before the courts of an EU member state to request compensation for damages, both in the face of lawsuits initiated by Russians for contracts whose execution has been affected by EU sanctions, and against the beneficiaries of the Russian assignment measures under temporary administration.
THE OTHER MEASURES
But the package is full of other measures. Although EU countries will be able to continue to import the increasingly reduced quotas of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), for the first time a ban on transshipment in European ports is foreseen with the aim of re-exporting the methane to third countries, as well as the provision of related technical services. By preventing access to European infrastructure to optimize transport, the EU aims to increase Moscow’s operating costs.
There are 27 ships, both methane tankers and oil tankers, included in the EU black list; the measure also aims to limit the trafficking of the so-called “ghost fleets”, i.e. those that transport military equipment to Russia or volumes of grain stolen in Ukraine. Green light, then, to the anti-tax evasion crackdown, whereby each EU parent company will have to ensure compliance with the sanctions by non-EU subsidiaries, to the halt to Russian financing of political parties, foundations, media and NGOs and to the ban on companies 25% or more owned by Russians to transport goods into the Union or register a trademark in the EU.
The Baltic countries, meanwhile, are already looking ahead and are proposing to ban the import of Russian fish products. Moscow announced that it had responded to the package by “significantly” expanding the list of institutional representatives who are banned from entering its territory, including members of some national parliaments.
