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Economy commissioner says it's not time to ease pressure on Russia
Brussels has criticized the US decision to extend a sanctions exemption on Russian oil sales, warning that the move will only increase Moscow's financial gains since the start of the war with Iran.
"From the EU's point of view, we do not think this is the time to ease pressure on Russia," Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's economy commissioner, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Paris.
“In fact, Russia is the one who is gaining from the war in Iran and the rise in fossil fuel prices,” he said, adding, “respectively, if anything, we should strengthen this pressure.”
The comments come after Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, announced on Monday evening that Washington would extend by 30 days an exemption from sanctions for Russian oil that is already at sea.
The move “will help stabilize the physical crude oil market and ensure that oil reaches the most energy-sensitive countries,” Bessent said. He added that it “will also help redirect existing supply to countries that need it most while reducing China’s ability to stockpile oil at low prices.”
This is Washington's second 30-day extension of an exemption first introduced in March, as Donald Trump's administration seeks to contain the rise in oil prices caused by the US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February.
The conflict, currently subject to an uneasy ceasefire, has included repeated attacks on Middle Eastern energy infrastructure. It has also led Iran and the US to impose what amounts to a double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy hub through which a fifth of global oil and gas supplies passed before the war.
Rising energy prices have greatly benefited Russia's economy, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuel exports and has been hit by multiple rounds of Western sanctions since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Finnish organization, reported last week that Russia's fossil fuel export revenues rose to 733 million euros per day in April: the highest level in two and a half years.
Markets also remained tense Tuesday morning after Trump announced he had called off a strike on Iran at the request of Gulf leaders. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading at around $110 a barrel, roughly $40 more per barrel than before the war began.
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