You're reading: EU economic sanctions against Russia prolonged by 6 months

BRUSSELS - The Council of the European Union on July 1 approved the decision agreed upon on June 21 by the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU countries to prolong the economic sanctions on Russia by six months, until January 31, 2017, the council said in a communique.

“The decision was adopted by written procedure and, as is the rule for all decisions on prolongation of restrictive measures, unanimously,” the document said.

“These measures were introduced on 31 July 2014 initially for one year in response to Russia’s actions destabilizing the situation in Ukraine. They were reinforced in September 2014. They target the financial, energy and defense sectors, and the area of dual-use goods,” the document said.

The European Council on March 19, 2015 approved the linking of the period of these sanctions to full implementation of the Minsk agreements. They were expected to be lifted by December 31, 2015, but the Council extended them until July 31, 2016, bearing in mind that the Minsk agreements were not fully implemented in that period.

“Having assessed the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the Council decided to renew the sanctions for a further six months, until 31 January 2017,” the Council of the European Union said in its communique.

The sanctions limit access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for five major Russian majority state-owned financial institutions and their majority-owned subsidiaries established outside of the EU, as well as three major Russian energy and three defense companies.

The sanctions impose an export and import ban on trade in arms, establish an export ban for dual-use goods for military use or military end users in Russia, and curtail Russian access to certain sensitive technologies and services that can be used for oil production and exploration.

In addition to these economic sanctions, several EU measures are in place in response to the crisis in Ukraine such as targeted individual restrictive measures, namely a visa ban and an asset freeze, currently against 146 people and 37 entities until 15 September 2016, according to the communique.

Restrictive measures are also imposed in response to “the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, currently in place until 23 June 2017,” the document said.