Brussels has criticized the US decision to extend a sanctions waiver on Russian oil sales, warning that the move will only increase Moscow’s financial gains since the start of the war in Iran.
“From the EU point of view, we do not think that this is the time to ease pressure on Russia,” Valdis Dombrovskis, EU Economy Commissioner, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Paris.
“In fact, Russia is the one that is gaining from the war in Iran and the increase in fossil fuel prices,” he added. “Correspondingly, if anything, we need to strengthen that pressure.”
The remarks come after Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, announced on Monday night that Washington would extend by 30 days a sanctions waiver for Russian oil already at sea.
The move “will help stabilize the physical crude market and ensure oil reaches the most energy-vulnerable countries”, Bessent said. He added that it would “also help reroute existing supply to countries most in need by reducing China’s ability to stockpile discounted oil”.
It is Washington’s second 30-day extension of a waiver first introduced in March, as Donald Trump’s administration seeks to contain the spike in oil prices triggered by the US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February.
The conflict, which is currently subject to a shaky ceasefire, has involved repeated strikes on the Middle East’s energy infrastructure. It has also led Iran and the US to impose what amounts to a double blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy chokepoint through which a fifth of global oil and gas supplies transited prior to the war.
The surge in energy prices has hugely benefited Russia’s economy, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuel exports and has been battered 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 think tank, reported last week that Russia’s revenue from fossil fuel exports rose to €733 million per day in April: the highest level in two and a half years.
Markets also remained on edge on Tuesday morning, after Trump announced that he had called off an attack on Iran following requests by Gulf leaders. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading at around $110 per barrel – roughly $40 more per barrel than before the war’s onset.
See the original of this report by Thomas Moller-Nielsen here.