The European Union’s twelfth round of anti-Russia sanctions talks have reached a gridlock due to Hungary’s flat-out rejection of the proposed measures.
“Talks on the EU’s 12th round of anti-Russia sanctions have stalled over Hungary’s complete objection to the entire package.
According to Rikard Jozwiak, it is unclear whether an agreement on the issue will be reached before Christmas.
‘First debate among EU ambassadors today on the new and possibly weakest EU sanctions package to date on Russia’, Jozwiak wrote. He added that there were ‘lots of comments’ as Budapest ‘put full reserve on entire package’.
According to the Guardian, the latest EU sanctions package includes restrictions on dozens of individuals, including the son of the former president of Russia and current Security Council deputy chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, and on a relative of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Commenting on the EU’s sanctions policy, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Moscow has been adapting to sanctions restrictions for many years and will continue to do so. She called the anti-Russian measures ‘an unprecedented blow to the EU countries, delivered by the EU officials themselves’.
The official noted that the EU’s potential for economic growth has been ‘completely exhausted’ and that the majority of the bloc’s members ‘suffer from chronic budget deficiency and excessive state debt’.
Since Russia’s years-long conflict with Ukraine turned into a military conflict in February of 2022, Brussels has implemented 11 packages of sanctions against Moscow. The number of restrictions has reached tens of thousands, although officials in the EU and U.S. have repeatedly admitted that the negative impact of the penalties on Russia has not been as significant as expected. The measures target various sectors of the national economy, financial institutions, and trade, as well as blacklisting several hundred Russian individuals and legal entities.
Many economists worldwide have repeatedly pointed out that Western sanctions have failed to achieve the declared goal of destabilizing Russia and its financial health. While initially, the economy suffered a downturn as a result of restrictions, it has now largely recovered after redirecting trade to the East, according to the Finance Ministry”. -RT
Budapest has thoroughly criticized Brussels’s sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, insisting that it is focused instead on helping reach a peaceful resolution to the hostilities.
And given Hungary’s previous opposition to Ukraine’s EU membership talks, the chances of the European bloc stretching all the way to Lugansk as Brussels had hoped seems appreciably remote at this stage.