MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the effectiveness of the EU sanctions on Russia
6.11.2023 - (2023/2905(RSP))
pursuant to Rule 132(2) of the Rules of Procedure
Anna Fotyga, Angel Dzhambazki, Witold Jan Waszczykowski, Kosma Złotowski, Jadwiga Wiśniewska, Ryszard Czarnecki, Bogdan Rzońca, Elżbieta Rafalska, Jacek Saryusz‑Wolski, Adam Bielan, Eugen Jurzyca, Assita Kanko, Cristian Terheş, Joachim Stanisław Brudziński, Alexandr Vondra, Veronika Vrecionová, Anna Zalewska, Hermann Tertsch
on behalf of the ECR Group
See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B9-0453/2023
B9‑0457/2023
European Parliament resolution on the effectiveness of the EU sanctions on Russia
The European Parliament,
– having regard to its previous resolutions on Ukraine and Russia,
– having regard to the UN Charter, the Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions and the additional protocols thereto and to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,
– having regard to the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Ukraine, of the other part[1], and to the accompanying Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between the European Union and Ukraine, signed in 2014,
– having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas the Russian Federation, with the active support of Belarusian dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka, is continuing its illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine, which began as early as 2014 with the occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, but which escalated on 24 February 2022 to become the largest military conflict on the European continent since the end of the Second World War;
B. whereas previous policies vis-à-vis the Russian Federation failed to halt its imperialism and have resulted only in increasingly ruinous wars of aggression, such that anything short of victory for Ukraine would be an intolerable outcome for international peace, human rights and democracy;
C. whereas even after 2014, the EU and some of its Member States have continued with a policy of close cooperation with the Russian Federation in numerous fields, most notably energy, but also in the space sector and even in the military domain, despite calls to put a stop to it; whereas European companies, such as Siemens, as well as companies engaged in the construction of the Kerch bridge, committed glaring breaches of EU sanctions and contributed to increasing Russia’s capabilities and enabling further aggression; whereas such scandalous cases, despite some media attention, have not been properly investigated and prosecuted, which would act as a deterrent to other companies;
D. whereas the EU has adopted 11 packages of sanctions against Russia to weaken its military capacity and hamper its ability to wage a full-scale war; whereas these include personal sanctions against over 1 800 individuals, the disconnection of 10 leading Russian financial institutions – including Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank – from the SWIFT international financial messaging system, a prohibition on exports to Russia (including transit) of dual-use goods and/or technology, drone engines, arms, civilian firearms, ammunition, military vehicles and paramilitary equipment, the closure of EU airspace, seaports and roads to Russian aircraft, vessels and transport operators, a price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products exported to third countries and a ban on the provision of maritime transport; whereas although these sanctions have to some extent undermined the Kremlin’s ability to wage its unprovoked war, they should nevertheless be accompanied by other efforts such as continued military support to Ukraine;
E. whereas it is estimated that the EU has frozen EUR 300 billion of Russia’s central bank reserves and EUR 19 billion in Russian oligarch’s money, while the US and other Western allies have blocked or seized more than USD 58 billion in assets owned or controlled by sanctioned Russians;
F. whereas as a reaction to the act of aggression, many international companies decided to leave the Russian market, yet significant numbers of firms headquartered in the EU and in G7 countries, in particular in Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Austria and Spain, nevertheless continue to operate and invest in Russia, thus supporting Russia’s war economy;
G. whereas Russia is dependent on willing third-country individuals and entities to resupply its military and enable it to continue its heinous war against Ukraine; whereas according to credible reports, the supply of arms and military equipment is continuing, not only from North Korea and Iran but also increasingly from China;
H. whereas nine years since Russia’s aggression against Ukraine began, Raiffeisen, the largest Western lender still operating under Putin’s regime, generated almost half of its profits from its Russian operations, with a notable surge in profits in 2022, despite calls to cut back its business in the country;
I. whereas Russia’s sanctions-dodging schemes are becoming more advanced, in particular when it comes to selling the oil that remains the main source to fund its war;
J. whereas EU countries imported about the same amount of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from January to September 2023 as they did during the same period in the previous year, with some increasing their LNG imports by 40 to 50 %, while the German companies Technip and Linde played a critical role in Russia’s development of the ‘Arctic LNG 2’ project, which has recently been added to the US sanctions regime;
K. whereas Russia has created a so-called dark fleet of oil tankers capable of operating without Western insurance and other services, in order to circumvent the oil cap introduced by the EU;
L. whereas Russia is able to obtain a significant number of the computer components required to produce ballistic and cruise missiles by using its space programme (ROSCOSMOS) as a means of acquiring technologies with both civilian and military applications;
M. whereas numerous companies, including in Serbia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, India and China are willing to take substantial risks to fulfil Russian procurement demand for goods prohibited under the EU sanctions;
N. whereas Russia has established alternative routes for imports of dual-use goods – mainly through China, Turkey, Cyprus, and the United Arab Emirates – which have become hubs for exporting, re-exporting, and trans-shipping foreign-made technology and equipment to Russia; whereas the quantity of such imports has already exceeded pre-war levels; whereas, as an example, Russia’s imports of microprocessors and/or semiconductors increased from USD 1.82 billion in 2021 to USD 2.45 billion in 2022 (year to year);
O. whereas, according to some sources, in 2022 Russia imported unmanned aerial vehicles from China, Hong Kong, India, Turkey and also from EU countries, namely the Netherlands and Germany;
P. whereas with no sanctions on the Russian grain trade, the Kremlin has used the Black Sea grain blockade to aggressively drive Ukraine away from its traditional markets and expand its own exports, and has continued to export grain stolen from Ukraine’s occupied territories;
1. Reiterates its unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognised borders, and affirms that it is the policy of the EU to see Ukraine victorious against the invasion and restored to its internationally recognised 1991 borders; reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine;
2. Demands that Russia and its proxy forces cease all military actions, in particular genocidal attacks against residential areas and civilian infrastructure, as well as the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children into the Russian Federation and Belarus, and that Russia completely and unconditionally withdraw all military forces, proxies and military equipment from the entire internationally recognised territory of Ukraine;
3. Welcomes the most recent sanctions package announced on 2 November 2023 by the US and calls for the close coordination of the restrictive measures aimed at decreasing Russia’s capacity to continue its aggression to be maintained;
4. Calls for the swift preparation and implementation of a new EU sanctions package which would strengthen and ensure the greater effectiveness of the restrictive measures already in place and make it more difficult for Russia and third countries to circumvent these measures, in particular:
a. by imposing measures to disrupt every link in Russia’s military supply chain and targeting outside actors who would seek to support Russia’s war effort, including through the production of drones and missiles;
b. by introducing additional sanctions targeting impactful Russian business actors, including, among others, the Russian companies still present in EU markets, such as Lukoil, by reducing the EU’s nuclear fuel cooperation with Moscow and including the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom in the sanctions regime;
c. by banning the import of Russian diamonds and sanctioning the state-owned company Alrosa, and by the broad introduction of systems of tracking diamonds’ origin based on new technologies;
d. by strengthening oil price cap enforcement and price cap compliance, in particular, by requiring that price attestations for Russian oil cargoes can only be issued by a whitelist of approved traders and by requiring all tankers transiting European territorial waters to verify they hold adequate oil spill (‘P&I’) insurance;
e. by imposing full sanctions on all Russian oil and gas companies – including Gazprom, Gazpromneft, Rosneft, Surgutneftegas, Lukoil, Tatneft, Transneft, Sibur, Zarubezhneft and Novatek;
f. by imposing full sanctions on Gazprombank, which was previously exempted from sanctions to facilitate the energy trade;
g. by imposing full taxation on the Western oil and gas companies remaining in Russia;
h. by imposing a full ban on LNG imports from Russia and any technological cooperation on development and supporting the LNG sector;
i. by restricting access to information and communication technologies (ICT) and their future development, including a ban on the maintenance of cloud services and by expanding sanctions on entities and individuals that finance, research, develop, or import advanced technology to Russia;
j. by blocking Russian access to Western oil field services (OFS);
k. by sanctioning Russian OFS companies;
l. by engaging with OPEC+ countries in order to prevent the Russian economy from being boosted by profits from oil exports;
m. by limiting the export of dual-use items by harmonising the definitions of which goods are considered ‘dual-use’ and by applying restrictions consistently across jurisdictions;
n. by applying a stricter export licensing process and increased enforcement capacity, with particular attention to products under sanctions that are sold to intermediaries and countries that are closely tied to Russia and may act as intermediaries for Russian companies;
o. by expelling or suspending Russia’s membership of international organisations, including the UN Security Council, the World Trade Organization, the World Customs Organization, the International Monetary Fund and by blocking Russia’s participation in sporting and cultural events;
p. by imposing secondary sanctions on companies in third countries that are supplying Russia with military and dual-use goods;
q. by immediately halting any space programme cooperation with Russia and the supply of any materials connected to this programme;
r. by imposing full sanctions on Russia’s 10 largest banks – Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Alfa-Bank, Rosselkhozbank (the Russian Agricultural Bank), the Credit Bank of Moscow, Bank Otkritie, VEB, Promsvyazbank and Sovcombank;
s. by setting deadlines for the exit of the remaining foreign banks from the Russian market, in particular Raiffeisen, the biggest Western bank still operating in Russia and by threatening third-country institutions with secondary sanctions in order to close loopholes;
t. by engaging with the key companies which keep on exporting goods to Russia and by informing public opinion of their use in the war against Ukraine, in order to encourage them to meet their corporate social responsibility models and implement proactive measures to stop tech transfers;
u. by sanctioning the third-party intermediaries and companies which are used for the purposes of circumventing the current sanctions regime;
5. Regrets the decision of many Western companies to continue doing business with the Russian Federation, which places a question mark over their governments’ willingness to decouple from the economy of the dictatorial aggressor regime; calls on those who until now have chosen profit over corporate social responsibility and ordinary public decency to leave the Russian market and use the opportunity to engage in Ukraine’s recovery and rebuilding plan, which will be the biggest investment project in Europe;
6. Calls on the relevant authorities to investigate and punish the most blatant violations, such as the actions by Siemens in delivering turbines to occupied Crimea, as well as the companies that participated in the construction of the Kerch bridge; underlines that companies that violate EU sanctions should be cut off from any EU funds, fully cooperate in the investigation and redress the situation;
7. Calls for the EU and its Member States to work more closely with international partners, in order to prevent further Russian sanctions evasion and export control violations through their jurisdictions; calls, furthermore, for further coordination with democratic partners, in particular the G7 and welcomes the recent US sanctions aimed at disrupting Russia’s supply chain for the highest priority items;
8. Calls on the Member States and the European External Action Service to put pressure on third countries, particularly those which aspire to EU membership or closer ties with the EU, to stop aiding Russia in circumventing the EU sanctions and to put pressure on their businesses and companies to stop cooperating with the Russian Federation;
9. Underlines the need for Belarus to mirror these restrictive measures; notes that despite numerous calls to do so, Belarus has not mirrored the sanctions imposed on Moscow, exercises unacceptable violence against Belarusian citizens, cooperates with Russia in the aggression against Ukraine, and, together with Russia, weaponises migration for political purposes and conducts hybrid actions targeted against the European Union;
10. Reiterates its strong belief in Russia footing the bill for rebuilding Ukraine, as the perpetrator of the aggression should pay for its war crimes and provide recompense for all damage; reiterates, in this regard, its call on the Commission and the Member States to take the lead in the preparation of a multilateral mechanism for overseeing, enforcing and disbursing the payment of Russian reparations to Ukraine and enabling the use for this purpose of funds and assets frozen as a result of the Russian invasion;
11. 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 Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Criminal Court, the President, Government and Parliament of the Russian Federation, and the President, Government and Parliament of Ukraine.
- [1] OJ L 161, 29.5.2014, p. 3.