Towards a widespread crisis in Europe? Finance ministers from the G7 countries – the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom – announced today (Friday) that they will ban the trade and maritime transport of crude oil and other oil products coming from Russia around the world, if they are marketed above a price ceiling to be determined . “The maximum price will be determined by a broad coalition of countries in the future,” the finance ministers said in a joint statement.
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The move comes due to the desire of the G7 countries to try and reduce Moscow’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine without excessively stimulating global inflation. Since the beginning of July, global oil prices have fallen by about 18%, but they are still about 20% higher than they were a year ago.
However, Russia threatened to respond to this with a blanket ban on oil exports to all countries that would support the resolution. “We simply will not supply oil to such and such companies or countries that impose restrictions on us,” said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
Also, senior officials in the Biden administration recently admitted that there was a serious concern about the possibility that the prices of gas and electricity in the United States and the countries of the European Union would rise due to an expected shortage of gas. This, after Russia announced in advance that it would reduce its supply to Germany to only 20% of its capacity.