... on Turkey’s oil and gas drilling in the Eastern Mediterranean. High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell
said
the Working Party of Foreign Relations Counsellors (RELEX) is about to complete its package of sanctions against Turkey. It is compiling a list of individuals and companies on which restrictions will be imposed.
Ivan Timofeev:
US Sanctions Against Turkey: Zero Escalations
The Council of the EU
adopted
a decision on sanctions against Turkey on ...
... have already voiced strong discontent with the U.S. sanctions. Indeed, they benefit from the project. Russia has agreed to preserve a considerable part of its gas transit via Ukraine — this has been one of the key demands to support the project. The European Union has never invited the U.S. to protect them from the NS2, though there was a heated debate inside the EU. Apparently, sanctions emerge as an instrument of towering market competition for the European gas market. Donald Trump has repeatedly and explicitly voiced his ambitions to promote a more expensive American LNG to Europe and knock out Russians from the market. However,...
... Beijing, Moscow and other capitals are increasingly unhappy about the US free-wheeling
One of the major achievements of 2019 was the US Department of the Treasury’s truly monumental efforts to collect fines from foreign businesses for breaching US sanctions. Such fines have long become an irritating risk. Although big fines worth several hundred million or even several billion US dollars are still few and far between, the very fact that businesses have to be involved in US official enquiries is ...
... Russia and would reveal profound disagreements within the EU on how it should treat Russia. Though in Brussels they consider their ability to maintain EU sanctions against Russia a major manifestation of the EU’s integrity, it is hard to deny that sanctions cannot be a substitute for a strategy, as it has never followed the declaratory “five principles.”
Mark Entin, Ekaterina Entina:
Testing by the Council of Europe
However, the European Union cannot continue to maintain its integrity on the “Russian issue” forever without moving beyond the “five principles” — or rather, moving beyond converting the “five principles” into detailed “road maps” and concrete proposals....
... exporting countries are ready to increase production volumes. In this case, Iran could simply lose its market share. Later, Washington cancelled the exemptions altogether, thus even more strengthening the blockade of Iranian oil exports.
4. Even though the European Union criticized the US for withdrawing from the JCPOA and revived the 1996 Blocking Statute, major companies are expected to abide by the US sanctions and leave Iran. Over the past 15 to 20 years, the United States has created a powerful tool in the form of secondary sanctions that mostly consist of imposing fines on companies in breach of the US sanctions. Although these fines are mostly ...
... far have failed to settle the issue.
The international sanctions against Russia, which are designed in such a way that they hot the country’s trade and economic relations with its allies, are a significant factor in bilateral relations. The counter-sanctions imposed by Russia against the European Union have created barriers in the implementation of the customs union within the EAEU. Due to the geography of international transit corridors, the common Russia–Belarus customs space has felt the brunt of the blow.
Another sore spot in bilateral ...
... European-Russian cooperation in Syria
“Russia pursues political rather than economic goals in Syria. Given the context, the sanctions against Syria will not affect Moscow’s major policy,” Ivan Timofeev, director of programs at the Russian International ... ... differences
in this area. While Russia sees Syrian reconstruction mainly in terms of rebuilding the damaged physical infrastructure, European Union states link the reconstruction efforts to political transition.
Meanwhile in Moscow there are two competing views ...
... dominance for political ends has long been a source of discontent beyond its borders. In today’s world, there are at least two major economic centres that are strong enough to create an alternative system of settlements so as to shield themselves from US sanctions. The European Union has the greatest potential in this regard: it has a developed economy, its own currency, and a global network of trade and economic ties. European companies get fined for violating US sanctions much more often than any other non-US entities ...
... calibrates a set of restrictive measures at its sole discretion.
Ivan Timofeev:
Sanctions for the Violation of Sanctions: Businesses on US Treasury Radar
Another important distinction of EU policy is its extremely reserved attitude towards extraterritorial sanctions. The European Union authorities may well use secondary sanctions, that is, to punish certain companies or organisations for violating existing restrictions. However, Brussels uses such measures within its jurisdiction. The United States, on the contrary, is ...
... rejected the Iranian policies of its predecessors and replaced the latter’s rapprochement approach with increased military, diplomatic and economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. The White House walked out of the JCPOA, introduced new and tough sanctions against Tehran, and started energetically building a broad anti-Iran coalition in the region.
As might be expected, this dramatic change in US policy is profoundly impacting the balance of political powers within Iran — reformers and pragmatics ...
