The transitional period is over: as a response to the war of aggression against Ukraine, no more coal has been allowed to be imported from Russia into the EU since midnight.
The EU countries are now no longer allowed to import coal from Russia. At midnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the transition period for the coal embargo against Russia, which the EU states had decided on as part of the fifth sanctions package in April, ended. At the time, the countries had agreed on a transitional period of 120 days so that the industry could adapt to the import ban.
The aim of the import ban is to further weaken the Russian economy against the background of the war in Ukraine. According to the EU Commission in April, the coal embargo could mean a minus of around eight billion euros per year for Russia. Despite the import ban, the Association of Coal Importers (VdKi) does not expect supply bottlenecks in Europe, since coal is available on the world market. The main supplier countries are now the USA, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia and Colombia.
With the coal embargo, the EU sanctioned energy supplies from Russia for the first time. In a later package of sanctions, the EU countries also agreed to largely ban Russian oil supplies in order to further increase the pressure on Moscow. However, this is not expected to apply until the end of the year, with exceptions for a few particularly dependent countries such as Hungary, which are still allowed to receive pipeline supplies from Russia. On Tuesday, however, the Russian pipeline monopolist Transneft announced that oil deliveries to Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline had been stopped.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
