EU fails to approve 20th sanctions package against Russia

EU foreign ministers failed to reach an agreement on the 20th sanctions package against the aggressor state during today’s meeting of the Council of the European Union.

This was announced at a press conference in Brussels following the meeting by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

“Unfortunately, we did not reach an agreement on the 20th sanctions package,” Kallas said.

“This is a setback and message we did not want to send today,” she added, noting that work on the package will continue.

“We have already seen this scenario before. We are doing an outreach at different levels to Hungarian and Slovak colleagues to move on with this package. It is never easy, but the work continues. I really regret that we did not reach an agreement today, considering that tomorrow is the sad anniversary of the start of this war. We really need to send strong signals to Ukraine that we keep on helping Ukraine, while also putting more pressure on Russia so that this war would stop,” Kallas said.

Emphasizing the need to increase pressure on the aggressor, she added: “We must flip the script from pressure on Ukraine to surrender territory, to what Russia must do to meet the basic conditions for a just and lasting peace.”

Kallas also warned that the EU must not suffer collateral damage from the outcome of Russia’s war.

“We must be clear about what we expect from Russia: respect for borders, end of sabotage, paying off war damages, and the return of Ukrainian kidnapped children – aren’t just far-fetched tasks, they should be a baseline,” she said.

As Ukrinform previously reported, the European Commission expects all EU leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who committed during last December’s European Council meeting to support a €90 billion credit for Ukraine, to fulfill their obligations.