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President Vladimir Putin at the celebrations of the 7th anniversary of the annexation of Crimea on March 18, 2021
Photo: Sergei Malgavko / imago images / ITAR-TASS
The European Union is preparing tougher sanctions against Russia for annexing Crimea.
This emerges from a confidential report by the German embassy in Brussels, which is available to SPIEGEL.
Lithuania and other countries, including Bulgaria, Romania and Denmark, had called for the new punitive measures last Monday in a working group with representatives of the EU states. They wanted to add five more people or organizations to the EU's sanctions list, which was created shortly after Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula in early 2014 and has been constantly expanding ever since.
This would be "the necessary response to Russia in view of the ongoing Russification of the annexed area," argued the proponents, according to the report from the German embassy to the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin.
The report does not reveal who exactly is to be additionally sanctioned.
Such information is subject to special confidentiality measures to prevent data subjects from taking precautions before sanctions are formally decided and come into effect.
The representative of the federal government initially entered a reservation together with Italy and Finland, the document continues.
Accordingly, Berlin, Rome and Helsinki said that there was still a need for examination.
According to SPIEGEL information, the Federal Foreign Office has now completed the examination. The representative of the federal government should therefore agree to the listing of other people and organizations at the next meeting of the relevant Council working group in Brussels. The House of Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) has now issued a corresponding instruction to the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic in Brussels, as SPIEGEL learned.
Baerbock is discussing the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border with her EU counterparts in Brussels this Monday. Germany is under pressure from EU partners and the USA to position itself more clearly against Russia in the conflict. So far, Berlin has rejected measures such as the possible exclusion of Russia from the Swift international payment system or a halt to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project - mainly out of fear for the Russian gas imports, which are important for Germany. Arms deliveries to Ukraine are also out of the question for the federal government at the moment.
The Russian President has now deployed more than 100,000 soldiers with heavy weapons on the border with Ukraine.
The West is threatening Moscow with massive economic sanctions should there be renewed military aggression against Ukraine.
The Western Allies have not yet decided on the exact scope of punitive measures against Russia in the event of a new invasion.
On the one hand, according to diplomats, one would like to wait and see what Putin is up to - and adapt the reaction to the severity of the Russian aggression.
On the other hand, Moscow should be left in the dark about what exactly would happen in the event of an invasion, in order to make the consequences for Putin unpredictable.
"We will not put price tags on Russia's possible actions," says a senior EU diplomat.
“That would give Putin an advantage.”
