EU's new Russia sanctions aim for more effective oil price cap
Andrew Gray
and
Lili Bayer
, Reuters
EU Commission Vice-President and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
Photo:
JONATHAN RAA / NurPhoto via AFP
The European Union has agreed an 18th package of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, including measures aimed at dealing further blows to the Russian oil and energy industry.
The EU will set a moving price cap on Russian crude at 15 percent below its average market price, EU diplomats said, aiming to improve on a largely ineffective US$60 cap that the Group of Seven major economies have tried to impose since December 2022.
"The EU just approved one of its strongest sanctions packages against Russia to date," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on X.
"We will keep raising the costs, so stopping the aggression becomes the only path forward for Moscow."
Yet Russia has so far managed to sell most of its oil - the lifeblood of its state finances - above the previous price cap as the current mechanism makes it unclear who must police its implementation. Traders doubt the new EU sanctions will significantly disrupt Russian oil exports.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged off the EU move, which would, at current prices, aim to cap the price of Russian crude at roughly US$47.60 per barrel. Benchmark Brent futures rose marginally on Friday to about US$70.
"We have repeatedly said that we consider such unilateral restrictions illegal, we oppose them," Peskov told reporters.
"But at the same time, of course, we have already acquired a certain immunity from sanctions, we have adapted to life under sanctions."
The package also bans transactions related to Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea, and with Russia's financial sector.
Kallas said 105 ships in Russia's "shadow fleet", the term used by Western officials for ships that Moscow uses to circumvent oil sanctions, had been blacklisted, along with Chinese banks that "enable sanctions evasion", which she did not name.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the decision "essential and timely" as Russia intensifies its air war on Ukrainian cities and villages.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha added: "Depriving Russia of its oil revenues is critical for putting an end to its aggression."
The European Union and Britain have been pushing to lower the G7 cap for the last two months after a fall in oil futures made the level of US$60 a barrel largely irrelevant.
But the United States has resisted, leaving the EU to move forward on its own, but with only limited power to enforce the measure, analysts and oil traders say.
As the dollar dominates global oil transactions, and US financial institutions play the central role in clearing payments, the EU cannot block trades by denying access to dollar clearing.
Agreement on the new EU package was held up for weeks as Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico demanded concessions on a separate plan to phase out EU dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Fico announced on Thursday night that he was ending his opposition.
Countries such as Greece, Cyprus and Malta had expressed concerns about the effect of the oil price cap on their shipping industries. But Malta, the last of the trio to hold out, also came on board on Thursday.
- Reuters
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

RNZ News
9 hours ago
- RNZ News
Trump arrives in Scotland for golf and bilateral talks as EU trade deal nears
By Andrea Shalal and Andrew MacAskill , Reuters US President Donald Trump. Photo: Reuters / Umit Bektas US President Donald Trump, dogged by questions about his ties to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein , arrived in Scotland for some golf and bilateral talks that could yield a trade deal with the European Union. Trump told reporters before leaving the US that he will visit his two golf properties in Scotland and meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Scottish leader John Swinney. Trump said he and Starmer would discuss the US-British trade deal and perhaps even "improve" it, but gave no details. He said Washington was also working hard on a possible trade deal with the European Union, which he said was very keen to make a deal. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said later she would meet Trump in Scotland on Sunday. EU diplomats say a deal could result in a broad 15 percent tariff on EU goods, mirroring a framework agreement with Japan reached this week and half of the 30 percent Trump is threatening to impose by 1 August. Trump has sought to reorder the global economy after imposing a 10 percent tariff on nearly all trading partners in April and threatening sharply higher rates for many countries to kick in a week from now. Trump says the moves will reduce the US trade deficit and bring in extra revenue, but economists warn the new trade policies could drive up inflation. The Republican president faces the biggest domestic political crisis of his second term in office. Allies and opponents alike have criticised his administration's handling of investigative files related to Epstein's criminal charges and the circumstances of his 2019 death in prison. The issue has caused a rare breach with some of Trump's most loyal Make America Great Again supporters, and majorities of Americans and Trump's Republicans say they believe the government is hiding details on the case, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. White House officials, frustrated by the ongoing focus on the Epstein saga, are hoping the controversy dies down while Trump is abroad, one person familiar with the matter said. As part of the visit, Trump will open a second 18-hole course on the Aberdeen property named in honour of his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, who was born and raised on a Scottish island before emigrating to America. As he left the White House, Trump told reporters that he looked forward to meeting both Starmer and Swinney, who had publicly backed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential election. "We have a lot of things in Scotland. I have a lot of love - my mother was born in Scotland," he said. "The Scottish leader is a good man, so I look forward to meeting him," Trump said. The trip, initially billed as a private visit, gives Trump and Starmer a chance to deepen their already warm relationship, with key issues on the agenda to include ending Russia's war in Ukraine, British and US sources said. British officials have been heartened by what they see as a clear shift in Trump's rhetoric on Ukraine and Russia in recent weeks, a British source said. The deteriorating situation in Gaza is also likely to come up. Starmer on Thursday said he would hold an emergency call with France and Germany over what he called the "unspeakable and indefensible" suffering and starvation being reported there, and called on Israel to allow aid to enter the Palestinian enclave. Gaza health authorities say more than 100 people have died from starvation, most of them in recent weeks. Human rights groups have said mass starvation is spreading even as tonnes of food and other supplies sit untouched just outside the territory. Since being elected last year, Starmer has prioritised good relations with Trump, stressing the importance of Britain's defense and security alliance with the US and being careful to avoid openly criticizing Trump's tariff policies. Britain sealed the first tariff-reduction deal with the US in May, which reaffirmed quotas and tariff rates on British automobiles and eliminated tariffs on the UK's aerospace sector, but left steel tariffs in place. Starmer is expected to press for lower steel tariffs, but sources close to the matter said it was unclear if any breakthrough was possible during Trump's visit. Trump has described Scotland as a "very special place" and made a similar trip there in 2016 during his first run for the presidency, but he will not necessarily get a warm welcome. About 70 percent of Scots have an unfavourable opinion of Trump, while 18 percent have a favourable opinion, an Ipsos poll in March found. Scottish police are girding for protests on Saturday in both Aberdeen and in Edinburgh, the country's capital. Trump will return to Britain from September 17-19 for a state visit hosted by King Charles. It will make Trump the first world leader in modern times to undertake two state visits to Britain. The late Queen Elizabeth hosted him at Buckingham Palace for a three-day state visit in June 2019. - Reuters

RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
SpaceX seeks cause of Starlink's global satellite network outage
Starlink is a satellite internet provider. Photo: 123RF SpaceX's Starlink satellite network was back up and running on Friday (local time) as engineers hunted for the root cause of one of its biggest international outages the night before, a rare disruption for the powerful internet system set off by an internal software failure. Users in the US and Europe began experiencing the outage at around 3pm EDT Thursday (7am NZST Friday), according to Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracker that said as many as 61,000 user reports to the site were made. In Ukraine, where troops rely heavily on Starlink for battlefield communications, the outage affected combat operations as service was "down across the entire front", said Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine's drone forces. Starlink, active in roughly 140 countries and territories and used by a growing number of militaries and government agencies, is a key source of revenue for Elon Musk's SpaceX. The network has grown rapidly since 2020 into a disruptive force in the satellite communications industry. Starlink acknowledged the outage on its X account on Thursday and said "we are actively implementing a solution." The service mostly resumed after two and a half hours, Michael Nicolls, SpaceX vice president of Starlink Engineering, wrote on X. By 8pm, the company wrote on X that the "network issue has been resolved, and Starlink service has been restored". "The outage was due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network," Nicolls said, apologising for the disruption and vowing to find its cause. Musk also apologised: "Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again," the SpaceX chief executive wrote on X. The outage was a rare hiccup for SpaceX's most commercially sensitive business. Experts speculated whether the service, known for its resilience and speedy development, was beset by a glitch, a botched software update or perhaps a cyberattack. Doug Madory, an expert at the internet analysis firm Kentik, said such a sweeping global outage was unusual. "This is likely the longest outage ever for Starlink, at least while it became a major service provider," Madory said. As Starlink amasses more than 6 million users, SpaceX has focused in recent months on updating its network to accommodate demands for higher speed and bandwidth. The company, in a partnership with T-Mobile, is also expanding the constellation with larger, more powerful satellites to offer direct-to-cell text messaging services, a line of business in which mobile phone users can send emergency text messages through the network in rural areas. SpaceX has launched more than 8000 Starlink satellites since 2020, building a uniquely distributed network in low-Earth orbit that has attracted intense demand from militaries, transportation industries and consumers in rural areas with poor access to traditional, fiber-based internet. "I'd speculate this is a bad software update, not entirely dissimilar to the CrowdStrike mess with Windows last year, or a cyberattack," said Gregory Falco, director of a space and cybersecurity laboratory at Cornell University. An update to CrowdStrike's widely used cybersecurity software led to worldwide flight cancellations and impacted industries around the globe in July last year. The outage disrupted internet services, affecting 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices. It was unclear whether Thursday's outage affected SpaceX's other satellite-based services that rely on the Starlink network. Starshield, the company's military satellite business unit, has billions of dollars' worth of contracts with the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies. Separately, Reuters reported on Friday that Musk ordered a partial shutdown of Starlink during a pivotal push by Ukraine to retake territory in its war with Russia in late September 2022. - Reuters


Scoop
a day ago
- Scoop
UN Experts Welcome Lifting Of Sanctions To Rebuild Syria
GENEVA (24 July 2025) – UN experts* today welcomed the recent lifting of sanctions on Syria by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Switzerland, after more than 14 years of severe and widespread human rights impacts across the country. 'Sanctions on Syria are no longer justified for the actions of the al-Assad Government after it was deposed in December 2024. Their lifting opens promising pathways to recovery. We urge the interim Government to prioritise the reconstruction of sustainable infrastructure and public services to fulfil the wide range of human rights at risk in Syria,' the experts said. In 2011, the al-Assad Government ordered its security services to crack down on pro-democracy protesters and anyone deemed to be affiliated with them across the country. Widespread arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings constituted crimes against humanity. Several States introduced sectoral and financial sanctions on the al-Assad Government, its officials and related entities in response. These aimed to prevent repression of the democracy movement, human rights violations, and international crimes committed during the subsequent armed conflict with armed and terrorist groups. They also aimed to prevent the use of chemical weapons and alleged State sponsorship of terrorism. 'Despite being targeted and providing for humanitarian exemptions, the sanctions had the unintended consequences of seriously impeding the human rights of the Syrian people and the delivery of humanitarian relief,' the experts said. The rights affected included the rights to life, food, health, housing, an adequate standard of living, water and sanitation, education, a healthy environment, development, and access to essential financial services and the internet. Such violations disproportionately affected women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons, migrants, internally displaced persons, rural people, and ethnic, national and religious minorities. 'The legacies of armed conflict, the deadly earthquakes in northeastern Syria and the COVID-19 pandemic have made effective national recovery and sustainable reconstruction even more urgent,' the experts said. While the EU lifted sectoral sanctions on energy, transport and banking, and all economic sanctions, individuals and entities linked to the former al-Assad Government will remain listed to 1 June 2026. EU security sanctions, including the arms embargo and export restrictions on equipment and technology that could be used for internal repression, will remain in place. The United Kingdom has similarly relaxed sectoral sanctions on energy, transport, banking and finance. The initial relaxation of US sanctions, including by General Licence 25 (GL 25) in May 2025 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, allowed US persons to do business in Syria. However, the underlying Sanctions Framework, including designations under the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list ('SDN'), remained in place at that time, together with the US Export Controls, Foreign Terrorist Organization and State Sponsor of Terrorism schemes, among others. The US Executive Order of 30 June 2025, 'Providing for the Revocation of Syria Sanctions', significantly removes sanctions on Syria, including a number of SDN Designations, while maintaining them on Bashar al-Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, individuals involved in chemical weapons activities, the Islamic State in the Levant and its affiliates, and alleged Iranian proxies. It also provides for possible whole or partial suspension of secondary sanctions under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, and reconsideration of Syria's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. 'We call on all actors maintaining sanctions, and engaged in the reconstruction of Syria, to abide by international human rights law,' the experts said. 'All types of assistance, technical or financial, must respect human rights and non-discrimination. This includes avoiding reinforcing sectarian, ethnic or religious divisions. Human rights assessments of reconstruction efforts must consider gender and intersectional vulnerabilities and needs,' they said. The experts also expressed alarm at recent sectarian violence in Sweida province, and unlawful intervention there by Israel, and called on all parties to cease fire and allow the interim Government to restore order in full respect for international law. *The experts: Astrid Puentes Riaño, Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; Surya Deva, Special Rapporteur on the right to development. Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent fromany government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.