Some EU Countries Take Issue With New EU Guidance on Russian Sanctions
A few EU member states expressed their concern that new proposed guidance from the European Commission could weaken sanctions on Russia and allow countries to ship certain key Russian commodities including coal, globally. Several countries, including Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, criticized the guidance, Bloomberg reported Sept. 21. In a meeting with EU ministers, the concerned parties asked the commission to halt the document's publication until their issues were addressed.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The new guidance, which hasn't yet been released, says that the transfer of certain goods should be allowed to combat food and energy insecurity globally. Before the update, the commission said the sanctions bar EU operators from transferring coal and providing services to all shipments of such goods coming from Russia. Latvia's Foreign Ministry said the guidelines were not coordinated with member states, Bloomberg said. A commission spokesperson said the EU is fully committed to avoiding the prospect of its sanctions unduly affecting trade in critical items to third countries and the clarification was relevant to agri-food items and energy.