The European Union has reached its limits with regard to financial sanctions against Russia, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Josep Borrell said in an interview with Franceinfo.
“With regard to financial sanctions, of course, you can always go further, but we have already reached the limits of what we can do. We did everything we could,” Borrell stressed. According to him, the imposed sanctions will lay “a heavy burden on the Russian economy.”
Borrell noted that sanctions related to the ban on the export of high technologies in the industrial and other sectors of the economy have become painful for Russia. At the same time, he stressed that it would be difficult for Europe to consider the issue of restrictions on the supply of Russian oil and gas. “For the United States, this is not too difficult, because they hardly consume Russian oil,” he stressed.
On March 8, US President Joe Biden announced that Washington was imposing a ban on all energy imports from Russia. According to him, Washington understands that the European allies will not be able to join this decision and that the ban on Russian oil and gas imports will hit the US itself.
The European Union and other Western countries, including the UK and the US, began to impose personal and sectoral sanctions against Russia in connection with the recognition of the independence of the DPR and LPR, as well as after the start of a special operation in Ukraine. The sanctions affected the economic, financial and trade sectors to varying degrees, including banks and technology exports. Also, the US, EU, Switzerland and others have imposed a ban on transactions with Russian government agencies and the Central Bank.