EU weighs sanctions on China for Russian energy imports
EU officials are discussing potential sanctions against China and other third countries for purchasing Russian oil and gas, in response to growing US appetite to curb Moscow’s ability to fund its war against Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump has said he is open to new measures targeting Russia in conjunction with the EU, after previous efforts to force President Vladimir Putin into peace talks failed.
EU officials and diplomats began negotiations on Sunday over what could feature in a new sanctions package, with potential secondary sanctions against China — a major buyer of Russian oil and gas — raised in many of the discussions, according to three people briefed on the preliminary talks.
A delegation of EU officials was separately expected to travel to Washington on Monday to discuss Russia sanctions with Treasury officials.
Trump on Sunday said he was “not happy” with Russia, adding that “certain European leaders are coming over to our country on Monday or Tuesday . . . individually . . . and I think we are going to get that settled”.
Asked when he would speak to Putin next, he replied: “Very soon, over the next couple of days . . . The Russia-Ukraine situation, we are going to get it done.”
The EU secondary sanctions proposals are “very early stage”, one of the people said, and are unlikely to be adopted unless the US also targets China’s energy imports.
Secondary sanctions are controversial and would require unanimous backing by the EU’s 27 members — with Hungary and potentially Slovakia likely to oppose the move. But Trump has in recent days increased the pressure on Europe to completely wean itself off Russian energy, with the two central European nations still largely dependent on gas and oil imports from Russia.
The European discussions on targeting China and other major importers of Russian energy come after the Trump administration imposed a 50 per cent tariff on Indian imports in response to the country’s continued purchase of Russian oil.
But the EU is reluctant to follow suit on India, as it would run counter to the bloc’s efforts to deepen trade relations with the world’s largest democracy.
The EU has also been reluctant to punish China for fear of retaliation against European companies despite Beijing’s deep ties to Moscow. China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner after the US.
The bloc targeted two small Chinese banks in its last sanctions package for allegedly enabling the trade of prohibited goods with Russia, in a move that officials said was a test of its legal framework for expanding its restrictions to China.
China overtook the EU after the 2022 full-scale invasion to become the largest importer of Russian oil. Last year, it imported about 2mn barrels a day, including about 1.3mn b/d by sea and about 800,000 b/d delivered through two pipelines, according to energy consultancy Kpler.
Putin attended Chinese President Xi Jinping’s military parade last week and in a sign of their deepening ties, China is preparing to reopen its domestic bond market to major Russian energy companies and the two countries have agreed on a major new gas pipeline project.
Historically, western sanctions have failed to crimp China’s appetite for cheap, sanctioned crude. The US, for example, has imposed secondary sanctions on Chinese shipping companies, traders and refineries since 2019 for continuing to import oil from Iran but the measures have had little impact on the trade.
In a statement to the Financial Times last month regarding its continued purchases of Iranian oil, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing said China has “consistently opposed illegal unilateral sanctions” that lack UN Security Council authorisation and that “normal co-operation between countries” was justified.
The European Commission said: “We are at a crucial moment as regards our action vis-à-vis Ukraine, we are in the process of preparing our next sanctions package.” Two of the people briefed on the preliminary talks said that any progress on EU secondary sanctions would require the full backing of the US and co-ordination with Washington.
Chris Wright, US energy secretary, is expected in Brussels on Thursday for talks with his EU counterpart Dan Jorgensen. Wright told the FT on Monday that the EU needed to end its own purchases of Russian oil and gas if it wanted the US to impose more sanctions on Moscow.
Jorgensen has said that the EU will stick with its plan to have phased out Russian fossil fuels by 2027, despite pressure from the US administration to accelerate the process. Hungary and Slovakia have so far resisted calls from other European capitals to halt their Russian oil and gas imports, and other EU states also continue to buy Russian liquefied natural gas.
Jorgensen said on Friday that for Europe’s own supplies of Russian energy the objective is “very, very clear. We want to stop the import as fast as possible . . . this is not a temporary sanction, this is something that will stand.”
