MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the conclusions of the European Council meeting of 24-25 March 2022, including the latest developments of the war against Ukraine and the EU sanctions against Russia and their implementation
5.4.2022 - (2022/2560(RSP))
pursuant to Rule 132(2) of the Rules of Procedure
Luis Garicano, Barry Andrews, Petras Auštrevičius, Vlad Gheorghe, Bernard Guetta, Ilhan Kyuchyuk, Nathalie Loiseau, Urmas Paet, Frédérique Ries, Ramona Strugariu, Dragoş Tudorache, Hilde Vautmans, Guy Verhofstadt, Stéphanie Yon‑Courtin
on behalf of the Renew Group
See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B9-0197/2022
B9‑0203/2022
European Parliament resolution on the conclusions of the European Council meeting of 24-25 March 2022, including the latest developments of the war against Ukraine and the EU sanctions against Russia and their implementation
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the outcome and conclusions of the meeting of the European Council on 24 and 25 March 2022,
– having regard to its previous resolutions on Russia and Ukraine, in particular those of 16 December 2021 on the situation at the Ukrainian border and in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine[1] and 1 March 2022 on the Russian aggression against Ukraine[2],
– having regard to the decisions taken by the Council on sanctions and restrictive measures against Russia, which include diplomatic measures, individual restrictive measures such as asset freezes and travel restrictions, restrictions on economic relations with Crimea and Sevastopol and with the non-government controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, economic sanctions, restrictions on media and restrictions on economic cooperation,
– having regard to the declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU of 4 April 2022 on Russian atrocities committed in Bucha and other Ukrainian towns,
– having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas the first EU sanctions against the Russian Federation were imposed in March 2014 following the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and whereas the fourth and most recent package was adopted on 15 March 2022 following Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, which it launched on 24 February 2022;
B. whereas the measures taken by the EU and other allies have not been sufficient or sufficiently well implemented yet to deliver the expected results, notably as regards the import of Russian oil and gas and the winding down of all EU-owned businesses in Russia; whereas the full impact of the sanctions that have been imposed will still take some time before they are fully felt in Russia; whereas Russia is also taking active measures to reduce the impact of the sanctions;
C. whereas the Baltic states stopped importing Russian gas on 1 April 2022; whereas Poland has announced its intention to become independent from Russian gas and oil by 2023;
D. whereas the war in Ukraine continues to take innocent lives a month after the Russian aggression began; whereas the atrocities perpetrated by the Russian troops reached a new low with the discovery on Sunday 3 April 2022 of the bodies of civilian men and women littering the streets of Bucha, a town inaccessible to the Ukrainian army for almost a month; whereas these facts clearly justify setting up an international commission to investigate all of the crimes committed by the Russian army since the beginning of the war;
E. whereas the Russian forces’ withdrawal from the Kyiv region has further revealed the devastation wrought by Russia’s invasion on Ukraine; whereas the international community was shocked by the haunting images of the atrocities committed in Bucha and a number of other Ukrainian towns; whereas the unbearable suffering of Ukrainian civilians must be categorically condemned and warrants the adoption of even stronger measures against the Russian Federation;
F. whereas Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine constitutes a threat to European peace, democracy and values; whereas this aggression also represents a threat to the EU Member States, particularly those in Central and Eastern Europe;
G. whereas the EU Member States have sent over EUR 23 billion to Russia as payment for fossil fuels since the beginning of the war;
H. whereas existing loopholes in economic sanctions are undermining the effectiveness of sanctions and helping Russia to finance its invasion of Ukraine; whereas, therefore, the European Union should immediately and urgently strengthen the sanctions taken against the Russian Federation; whereas only the imposition of comprehensive and genuinely painful sanctions on Russia’s economic sectors, including those that account for the main sources of state budget revenues, can be a precondition for changing the aggressive policies of President Putin and his government and for ending the war against Ukraine;
I. whereas tax revenues from Russia’s largest foreign companies make up a significant part of Russia’s budget and are estimated to account for a third of its military spending; whereas it is to be welcomed that more than 500 western companies have decided to refuse to work in Russia, to cooperate with it and its citizens, or to supply their products and services there; whereas private businesses should withdraw their investments, relocate production sites from Russia and cut running contracts;
J. whereas academic studies show that banning fossil fuel imports from Russia to the EU would have a manageable impact on the EU’s economic growth of less than 3 % in 2022;
1. Is appalled by and condemns in the strongest possible terms Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine, much of which amounts to war crimes, as well as the support of Belarus for this aggression; grieves with the people of Ukraine at their heartbreaking loss and suffering;
2. Condemns in the strongest possible terms the reported atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces in Bucha and a number of occupied Ukrainian towns that have now been liberated; stresses that there can be no impunity for the perpetrators of such horrendous war crimes and that the Russian Government officials and military leaders responsible for them must be held to account; supports all measures to ensure accountability for human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine by Russian armed forces, including the investigation launched by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court into war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the work of the Commission of Inquiry of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR);
3. Underlines that in view of the continuous military invasion, the European Union and its Member States must continue their efforts to support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, to strengthen our Union, to counter Russia’s aggressive actions, and to share the costs and burden of these measures with solidarity and unity;
4. Emphasises that Russia bears responsibility for the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, including civilian and residential buildings, as well as the significant economic and environmental losses, and will be required to compensate for the damage caused by its aggressive actions;
5. Stresses that the European Union must increase the financial and economic blockade of the Putin and Lukashenka regimes; calls for the immediate and effective implementation of sanctions and measures that have already been decided; underlines the need to further extend the scope of the sanctions imposed on Russian individuals, companies and banks, including the names provided by the foundation of Alexei Navalny, as well as to prevent the circumvention of the measures taken thus far, notably through the use of crypto-currencies and online transactions; calls on the Commission and the Member States to exclude all Russian and Belarusian financial institutions from SWIFT;
6. Calls on the Council to impose sanctions, including a ban on entry, arrests and the seizure of the property and assets of public figures that promote public opinion in Russia in support of Russian aggression against Ukraine, including leading and technical staff of public and private media that spread aggressive propaganda, so-called political experts, influencers, bloggers, artists and musicians who publicly support the criminal actions of the Russian Government and contribute to the large-scale involvement of the Russian population in the commission of war crimes;
7. Stresses that the unprecedented level of EU sanctions against the Russian Federation, which are expected to be further increased after the Bucha massacre, must be such as to leave room for diplomats to find a way out of the war;
8. Stresses that all assets belonging to Russian officials or the oligarchs associated with Putin’s regime, their proxies and strawmen, as well as those in Belarus linked to Lukashenka’s regime, should be seized and EU visas revoked as part of a complete and immediate end to golden passports, visas and residence permits; underlines that a broader segment of Russian officials, governors and mayors that abide by the current policy of the Putin regime and benefit from it should be targeted by the sanctions; welcomes the decision by multiple Member States to expel dozens of Russian diplomats who were secretively engaged in espionage activities and other clandestine operations on European soil on behalf of the Russian secret services, and calls for all Member States to follow suit and to identify and expel Russian and Belarusian covert operatives active on EU soil; calls on the Commission to conduct a thorough assessment of the use of visa-free travel to the EU by Russian and Belarusian diplomats in order to identify loopholes and malfeasances and to present a proposal with improvements;
9. Reiterates its call to cut all economic ties with Putin’s Russia, including a ban on exports of key technologies as well as other relevant restrictions on imports and investments; stresses that this is essential in order to have a significant impact on the Russian defence industry and its ability to prolong the war in Ukraine, while ensuring that humanitarian organisations are exempt from such sanctions, in addition to any commodities which are necessary to prevent the collapse of global food markets such as grain, fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ban road freight to and from Russia and Belarus and to restrict access to EU ports for Russian and Belarusian vessels and goods; demands a temporary ban on imports of oil, coal and gas, which should be extended if Putin’s aggression continues, together with a plan to continue ensuring Europe’s security of supply in the short term; notes that Russia’s demands for payments in roubles amounts to a breach of contract;
10. Calls for urgent measures to achieve a full-fledged Energy Union and full independence from Russian gas, oil and coal as soon as possible; welcomes the achievements of the Baltic states in securing energy independence and the cessation of Russian gas imports; calls on the Commission and the Member States to step up their efforts to meet higher energy efficiency targets, to facilitate the massive deployment of European renewable energy sources by, inter alia, tackling permit-related and other legal hurdles, to increase the production of hydrogen and deploy the infrastructure necessary for its transportation, and to complete an interconnected smart grid which enables the genuine demand-side flexibility needed for a cost-efficient reduction in energy use; underlines that investments in research and innovation remain essential for ensuring that Europe will have access to innovative technologies, aligned with the Union’s climate goals, in order to achieve energy independence in various sectors of the economy, in particular hard-to-abate industry; asks the Commission to ensure, through an ad hoc body, the highest level of coordination with the Member States in the decisions taken at national level regarding the energy mix and infrastructure, as well as at a European level, in order to assess the consistency with the objectives of achieving both full EU independence from Russia fossil fuels, and climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest;
11. Stresses that these decisions must be accompanied by a credible energy plan, which should include mitigating measures for European households and companies; believes that the costs and hardship faced by European citizens both within and outside our Union should be shared in full solidarity;
12. Calls on the Commission to urgently devise a proposal to strengthen the coordination and scrutiny at EU level of the implementation of the sanctions imposed; welcomes the Commission’s establishment of the ‘Freeze and Seize’ Task Force, whose role is specifically to enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs; calls on the Member States to report on the measures taken to implement these sanctions and calls on the EU institutions to invite Ukraine to participate in the working process of the ‘Freeze and Seize’ Task Force and to coordinate the decisions on sanctions with the Ukrainian authorities; calls on the Commission to set up a task force of authorities responsible for financial supervision, anti-money laundering, law enforcement, judiciary, digital markets and crypto-assets, building on the work of the existing ‘Freeze and Seize’ Task Force;
13. Reiterates that Russian disinformation is part of Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine and that the EU’s sanctions against Russian state-owned media channels can easily be circumvented by using VPN, satellite television and smart TV functions; calls on the Commission and the Member States to fully implement the ban on Russian state-owned propaganda channels;
14. Calls for the disclosure requirements of European financial institutions to be extended in order to inform competent authorities about all assets held by the aforementioned Russian and Belarusian citizens, and not only their deposits; recalls that EU citizens can use the Commission’s whistleblower tool to anonymously report violations of past, current and planned sanctions on Russian and Belarusian individuals and entities; believes that the scope of the individual sanctions lists should be extended to current and past beneficiaries of close connections with the Russian and Belarusian Governments;
15. Calls on the Commission to make full use of the anti-money laundering framework and to include Russia and Belarus in the list of high-risk jurisdictions as referred to in Article 9 of the fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive[3]; calls on the Commission to propose the creation of a dedicated body to monitor the enforcement of financial sanctions and other EU restrictive measures;
16. Calls on the Commission to put in place a coordination mechanism for the recovery of assets frozen in the jurisdictions of the Member States as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so that these resources can be used to finance the reception of Ukrainian refugees in the Member States as well as post-war reconstruction, feeding into the EU fund for the rebuilding of Ukraine; considers that the social use of the frozen assets for the needs of Ukrainians is part of the compensation that Russia should bear as the aggressor responsible for the destruction in Ukraine;
17. Calls on the Commission, to this end, to prepare a study to indicate legal pathways within the existing EU legal framework for effective asset recovery in a certain number of cases, such as unprovoked military aggression; invites the Member States to establish national legislation to create a legal basis for the use of confiscated funds as a result of EU sanctions to compensate the victims of Russian aggression against Ukraine;
18. Welcomes the start of interinstitutional negotiations on the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation and the adoption of amendments to the revised Transfer of Funds Regulation[4] by the lead committees on 31 March 2022, and encourages MEPs to confirm this vote in plenary, to reinforce anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures, and to put in place a stronger regulatory framework for crypto‑assets in the EU;
19. Stresses that Russia and Belarus should be suspended from international organisations and events, including trade provisions such as most-favoured nation status, as well as related preferential treatment at the World Trade Organization (WTO); welcomes the strong political signal sent by the EU, in collaboration with the G7 countries and other like-minded partners such as Albania, Australia, Iceland, South Korea, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia and Norway to stop treating Russia as a most-favoured nation within the framework of the WTO as of 15 March 2022;
20. Calls on the Member States and the EU to strengthen their capacity to effectively combat impunity for those who have committed or participated in war crimes;
21. Calls for continued coordination with transatlantic allies and like-minded partners such as those in NATO, the G7, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as well as the members of the European Free Trade Association, associated states and candidate countries; underlines that the EU should react decisively when presumed partners fail to support EU positions, and notes with concern and increasing disappointment the line of action taken in Serbia in this regard, which will have a clear impact on the country’s quest for EU membership;
22. Points to the urgent need to share at a European level the negative economic and social consequences of the war, notably the sanctions, which will hit the Member States hard but in different ways; considers, in this regard, that the EU should urgently mobilise existing programmes, budgetary reserves, cohesion funds, and Recovery and Resilience Facility loans that have not yet been requested in order to soften the negative economic and social consequences of the war; calls on the Commission to propose a revision of the multiannual financial framework as soon as possible in order to bolster relevant funds such as the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, humanitarian aid, the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, the European Defence Fund and the EU Civil Protection Mechanism; also invites the Commission, however, to explore ways to significantly strengthen the flexibility instruments allowing the EU to cope with crises;
23. Calls for the creation of a multi-billion-euro strategic autonomy fund for Europe (SAFE) in order to invest in energy independence, defence capabilities, food security and new partnerships for raw materials, as well as help companies, farmers and households cope with the consequences of the war; insists that SAFE should be established according to the ordinary legislative procedure and function under the full oversight of the European Parliament and the direct management of the Commission; emphasises that its overall amount must be established on the basis of a clear assessment of the costs and investment gaps and should also consist of newly mobilised funds from existing programmes not yet requested within NextGenerationEU and the multiannual financial framework;
24. Proposes the creation of a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine as an EU assistance and recovery instrument which, together with the support provided by other international partners, should support the Ukrainian economy and civil society and aid the rebuilding of destroyed infrastructure in Ukraine; supports the idea of a Ukraine Solidarity Trust Fund and calls for an international donors’ conference to be held in due course in order to contribute to this fund;
25. Calls on the Commission to ensure prudent fiscal policies in the Member States in order to prevent the occurrence of a sovereign debt crisis in the current economic circumstances, while remaining fully committed to abiding by the Stability and Growth Pact, for instance by extending the application of the general escape clause for one more year;
26. Calls on the European Central Bank to normalise its monetary policy in order to counter the inflationary consequences of high energy prices, which are hitting the lower and middle classes the hardest;
27. Points out that the adoption of restrictive measures by the Russian authorities against EU officials and members of national parliaments on 31 March 2022 in retaliation for the EU’s sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was carried out in an non-transparent manner, without clear criteria, and with the names of the persons targeted being anonymised; highlights that according to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ‘overwhelming majority of members of the European Parliament’ fall within those sanctions;
28. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the President, Government and Parliament of Ukraine, the President, Government and Parliament of the Russian Federation and the President, Government and Parliament of Belarus.
- [1] Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0515.
- [2] OJ C 125, 18.3.2022, p. 2.
- [3] OJ L 141, 5.6.2015, p. 73.
- [4] OJ L 141, 5.6.2015, p. 1.