The EU Wants to Break Up With Russian Oil

Yesterday, the EU officially proposed a complete ban on Russian crude within the next six months, as well as on refined oil products by year’s end.

🚫🇷🇺🛢️ More deets... 

• The EU’s executive body also proposed cutting Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, and two others off from the global Swift financial-messaging system, and banning three state-owned Russian broadcasters from the EU.
• Both measures can only be adopted with unanimous approval from the bloc’s 27 member-nations.
• Earlier this week, Hungary and Slovakia – two countries heavily dependent on Russian oil – said it’s physically impossible for them to switch away by the end of the year; the EU’s new proposal would reportedly carve out an exception for those two countries, granting them a total of 20 months to stop imports, sources told the WSJ.

🇪🇺 Big picture: Russia is the EU’s main energy supplier, accounting for nearly 27% of its crude oil imports in 2019 – far more than second-place Iraq (9%). It also supplies 30% of the EU’s natural gas, though the bloc isn’t currently considering banning such imports (which rose by 20% during the war’s first two months).

☝️ One thing to note: Top US officials have warned the EU to tread carefully when it comes to Russian oil and energy sanctions; Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last month cautioned that moving too quickly could force up prices, offsetting the loss of revenue for the Kremlin.

• Global oil prices jumped yesterday on the EU’s announcement, with the Brent crude index closing up nearly 5%.