The European Union intends to approve the 13th package of sanctions against Russia on February 24, 2024, the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Bloomberg reports.
According to the publication's sources, the list of bans will be supplemented by new trade restrictions and measures to combat their circumvention.
The agency notes that it will not be easy to reach an agreement on the 13th round of sanctions by the end of February, as the last round requires several weeks of negotiations.
Also, according to Bloomberg, the EU is discussing plans to create a new fund for military support for Ukraine, which some union countries want to use as a way to revise the existing funding mechanism known as the European Peace Facility (EPF).
Through the fund, member states are compensated for weapons they send to Ukraine. The size of the fund has been increased several times, but decisions on the allocation and distribution of funds require the unanimous support of member states.
Because of this, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban could delay or veto aid to Ukraine.
The bloc's foreign policy agency, the European External Action Service, has proposed allocating an annual budget of about 5 billion euros to the fund, but this has not led to a consensus among member states.
In the near future, officials will present a new document with alternative options to EPF participants, sources told Bloomberg.
In mid-December, the EU approved the 12th package of sanctions against Russia. It included, among other things, a ban on imports of rough diamonds from Russia, a ban on imports of liquefied petroleum gas (with a transition period of one year), adding 29 more firms from Russia and other countries to the list of strict export controls, and anti-circumvention measures such as requiring European exporters to include a clause in their contracts with buyers prohibiting re-exports to Russia.
Earlier this week, the Yermak-McFaul Group, which develops recommendations for sanctions against Russia, published another report. It says that in the first ten months of 2023, Western companies supplied critical components to Russia totaling $2.9 billion – products from more than 250 Western companies were found in samples of destroyed or trophy Russian weapons.
Background. Meanwhile, it has become known that Biden and the Democrats will make concessions to the Republicans on the border with Mexico for the sake of an aid package for Ukraine and Israel.