Council of EU adopts 14th package of sanctions against Russia, targeting Russian LNG for first time ever

The Council of the European Union adopted the 14th package of economic and individual sanctions against Russia on 24 June.

According to the press service of the Council of the European Union, these measures are aimed at important sectors of the Russian economy, such as energy, finance and trade, and make it difficult to circumvent EU sanctions.

Today's package includes restrictive measures against another 116 individuals and entities responsible for actions that undermine or threaten Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence.

The EU sanctions include measures against Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG). In particular, in order to ensure that EU facilities are not used for the transshipment of Russian LNG to third countries and thus reduce the significant revenues that Russia receives from the sale and transportation of LNG, the EU will prohibit transshipment services of Russian LNG in the EU for delivery to third countries.

This applies to both ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore cargo transfer and transshipment operations and does not affect imports but only re-exports to third countries via the EU. The European Commission will monitor the implementation and development of this decision and may propose mitigating measures if necessary.

In addition, the EU will prohibit new investments and the provision of goods, technology, and services to complete LNG projects such as Arctic LNG 2 and Murmansk LNG. Restrictions will also be imposed on imports of Russian LNG through EU terminals not connected to the gas system.

The European Union countries' ambassadors agreed on the 14th package of sanctions against Russia after more than a month of discussions earlier last week.

As reported, Germany was stalling the sanctions package due to the expansion of measures that would require EU companies to guarantee that their clients could not then sell sanctioned goods to Russia.

Additionally, according to media reports, the Hungarian government agreed to the 14th EU sanctions package, which includes restrictions on the supply of Russian liquefied gas in exchange for assurances that no current or future measures would threaten the implementation of the Paks II nuclear power plant project.