The finance ministers of Germany and France pushed back on Friday against criticism that the EU’s latest salvo of sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine do not go far enough.
“All options are on the table,’’ Germany’s Christian Lindner told reporters in Paris but emphasised that Russian banks were already “completely blocked’’ from EU financial markets.
France’s Bruno Le Maire said the Russian economy was already feeling the impact of the measures.
Some EU member states, especially the Baltics, had pushed for the harshest sanctions possible after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday.
This included the immediate expulsion of Russia from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment system, a banking payments communication system.
However, some EU countries, including Germany and Austria, have expressed reservations.
An EU diplomat told dpa that Hungary, Italy and Cyprus also agreed this would be a step too far, too soon.
Latvian President Egils Levites called again on Friday for Russia to be isolated from the world like North Korea.
Levits said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime “threatens not only Ukraine but for Europe and the whole world.’’
The foreign ministers from the 27 EU states are to meet on Friday for an urgent session on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and adopt the latest sanctions package on Russia.
EU leaders agreed on the wide-ranging measures that target Russia’s energy, finance and transport sectors on Thursday night at a crisis summit in Brussels.
The package includes technology export bans and restricts Moscow’s access to the EU’s financial markets.
“The package of massive and targeted sanctions approved tonight shows how united the EU is,’’ European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in the early hours of Friday.
Von der Leyen said that the measures include sanctions “targeting 70 per cent of the Russian banking market and key state-owned companies,’’ as well as Russia’s energy sector.
The EU also banned the sale of aircraft and equipment to Russian airlines and cut Russia’s access to “crucial technology’’.
Finally, visas, von der Leyen tweeted after six hours of consultations in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also involved.
“Diplomats and related groups and business people will no longer have privileged access to the EU.’’
EU leaders were meeting after Russia launched a multi-front offensive, including from Belarus, against Ukraine on Thursday which Ukraine has described as a “full-scale invasion” using land, sea and air forces.
The fighting had reached Kiev by Friday morning.
China, which has not criticised Russia for the attack on its neighbour, said once again on Friday that punitive measures were not an appropriate response.
“I will like to reiterate that sanctions have never been an effective way to solve problems,’’ Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said.
