Brussels’ top finance official insisted that the embargo is having an impact
The EU is putting together the 11th package of anti-Russian sanctions in response to the Ukraine conflict, EU commissioner for financial stability, financial services and capital markets Mairead McGuinness confirmed on Friday.
“We will have another package,” McGuinness told CNBC while attending an International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington, DC. She insisted that the previous ten rounds of sanctions were having an impact on Moscow’s “war machine” but that more was needed.
“Our information is that the sanctions are working, and we will be doing more but we need to look at full implementation,” McGuinness explained. “What Russia is being deprived of is both the finance and the technologies to reinvent their war machine, and they are having problems on the battlefield.”
The EU also intends to look at ways to prevent Russia from circumventing the embargo “with its pals globally,” said McGuinness. Rather than finger-pointing at entire countries, as the US has done, the bloc wants to pressure “individuals and entities” instead. To that end the EU has been working with the US, Canada and Japan to gather intelligence on Russian “evasion” efforts, she said.
Read more