The Forbidden Code: which EU sanctions are included in the stripped-down 21st package

The new European sanctions are aimed at the Russian banking system and the energy sector, but they will have only a temporary effect, and financial institutions will set up alternative settlement mechanisms, experts interviewed by Izvestia said. At the same time, Brussels failed to impose a complete ban on the transportation of our LNG and the import of certain types of fish. The idea to ban entry to EU countries for the participants of the SVR also failed. The 21st package met with unprecedented resistance: six countries opposed certain provisions at once. The information about what measures were agreed upon is in the Izvestia article.

How the EU accepted the 21st package of sanctions

After a month and a half of debate, Brussels has secured the approval of another block of anti-Russian restrictions. In order to lift the veto, the European Commission made concessions to Greece and several other countries. The head of the European Diplomacy, Kaya Kallas, said that the 21st package of sanctions is the largest in four years, it contains 218 points. However, the package was eventually approved in a shortened form, and the main initiatives of the EC had to be abandoned.

The first attempt to adopt this list of measures at the EU summit on June 18-19 failed due to Bulgarian objections - Sofia demanded that Patriarch Kirill and businessman Vagit Alekperov be removed from the lists. Then France and Italy put forward their claims due to the provisions on the ban on entry to the EU for their participants. Paris and Rome, according to media reports, pointed out that such formulations could block the way for all tourists from the Russian Federation. Germany and Portugal spoke out against the provisions banning the import of Russian fish. Austria seized the moment and demanded the unblocking of about €2 billion of Russian assets to compensate for the fine imposed in Russia on Raiffeisen Bank.

However, Greece became the main opponent of the new package. Brussels has proposed to ban the transportation of Russian LNG to third countries. This measure risks depriving the shipping company Dynagas, owned by Greek tycoon George Prokopiou, of part of its profits. European diplomats unsuccessfully tried to convince Athens to withdraw its veto at meetings on July 13 and 22, Politico writes.

As a result, the Greek representative agreed to the 21st package only after it included a one-year exemption allowing LNG to be supplied from Russia to third countries, and this measure will be automatically extended. Most likely, the Greek government will try to block sanctions against LNG in the future, Alexei Belogoryev, director of research and Development at the Institute of Energy and Finance, told Izvestia.

The European Commission has also failed to achieve a provision banning entry for participants in a special military operation in Ukraine. Initially, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, spoke about a ban for all those who served in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation since February 2022. However, in the end, she said that "an important step has been taken" towards this ban. A similar fate befell proposals to restrict the import of certain types of fish from Russia.

The adoption of each new package of sanctions will invariably cause more and more controversy among EU countries, European political scientist Egor Belyachkov believes. Brussels is exhausting the possibilities of imposing new sanctions, as there are practically no areas left in which even the perceived benefit to the EU would outweigh the negative effect on the Russian economy. More and more countries of the bloc are gradually beginning to realize the dead-end path of sanctions pressure, which is connected both with the processes in the EU itself and with the strengthening of opposition political forces opposed to the introduction of new restrictions. This is evidenced, in particular, by the growth of the AfG rating in Germany.

How will the new restrictions affect Russia

In the new package of sanctions, Brussels focuses on countering Russian energy supply chains, says Natalia Eremina, a professor at St. Petersburg State University. The goal is to reduce Russia's revenue from the sale of resources and lure Moscow's partners. To do this, the EU extended the "price ceiling" for our oil at $44 per barrel for a year and added 40 more ships and several refineries in Russia and Belarus to its blacklists.

However, companies from the Russian Federation have long adapted to attempts to oblige them to sell oil at a certain price and have built an independent infrastructure. Kirill Bakhtin, head of the BCS World Investments Russian Equity Analysis Center, believes that the new European measures will have no significant impact on either the Russian or global energy markets.

The main impact will not be on world prices, but on the cost of logistics for oil and gas companies and the direction of trade flows, said Dmitry Danilin, portfolio manager at Alfa Capital Management Company. For LNG, the short-term effect is mitigated by maintaining the possibility of sea transportation to third countries, but the ban on imports to the EU from 2027, restrictions on financing and technology, as well as the withdrawal of Western partners will complicate the development of new projects.

94 Russian financial organizations, including 32 banks, were included in the list of restrictions. The introduction of new measures will not be completely without consequences, but it is likely that it will not be possible to achieve the effect that the initiators of the 21st package of sanctions expect, says Mikhail Khachaturian, associate professor of the Department of Strategic and Innovative Development at the Financial University. In his opinion, the difficulties will be related not to long-term consequences, but to the transition period: banks that are subject to new restrictions will need time and additional technical resources to set up alternative international settlement mechanisms.

The EU has also extended restrictions to the Moscow Stock Exchange. At the same time, she came under American and British sanctions back in 2024. Payment deadlines may increase in the first few days after the restrictions are imposed. This is due to the fact that counterparty banks usually take a more cautious position when assessing possible sanctions risks. However, then the situation returns to normal, the financial adviser and founder of Rodin noted in an interview with Izvestia.Capital Alexey Rodin.

The EU is paying more and more attention to the fight against circumvention of restrictions — new measures are being introduced against crypto exchanges and oil trading companies. However, sanctions are only more actively encouraging Russia and its partners from friendly and neutral countries to switch to alternative formats of international settlements that are less dependent on the decisions of the United States and the European Union. In the long term, this can accelerate the formation of new mechanisms, including those based on cryptocurrencies, digital financial assets and digital currencies of central banks, Khachaturian concluded.

Another package of illegal anti-Russian restrictions will not change Moscow's policy. Instead of negotiating, Brussels decided to continue attempts at sanctions pressure, although the Europeans are already running out of ideas for new restrictions. Because of this, the EU may move away from the practice of large-scale restrictions, as previously reported by Izvestia. It is obvious that only a complete rejection of this policy will be a sign of the EU's real readiness for dialogue with Russia.