Isn’t the EU too weak against Russia with its ‘huge’?
Guy Verhofstadt couldn’t stand it anymore. According to him, the approach of Russia by Europe is much too weak. For weeks she has had to hit Russia where it practically hurts according to experts: boycott of Russian energy.
Two months after the start of the war, European sanctions are limited to expelling a few Russian banks from international payments, freezing the foreign banks and holding the Russian bank’s assets in it.
“That’s ridiculous,” Verhofstadt, the Belgian MEP and ex-prime minister, bellowed two weeks ago in a explanation to European heads of government. “It may work in a democracy, but not in a dictatorship.” In it he expressly addresses “my friends in Germany”, where the fiercest resistance comes from.
Verhofstadt is getting more acclaim by the day. 24 hours after his incisive speech, the European Parliament voted by an overwhelming vote (513 in favour, 22 against, 19 abstentions) to a motive calling on European heads of government to completely break with Russian oil and gas, and do so immediately. According to Spaniard Luis Garicano’s co-author, continuing to reduce is “morally indefensible”. Thus, Europe “finances genocide”.
Under that pressure, things begin to shift. Mario Draghi, Prime Minister of Italy, and like Germany for a long time one of the major troublemakers, let himself last week drop out that Rome would ‘follow’ the EU in a boycott. “Do we want peace or do we want the air conditioning to keep working?” he asked rhetorically. In Germany, the doubting chancellor Olaf Scholz is coming under more intense pressure, also from own circle† In Brussels they now know that the issue is no longer whether there will be a boycott, but when. The European Commission works behind the scenes to a proposal.
too happy
At the same time, it is already clear that the critics’ wish list is far from being fulfilled. To gas will remain outside the starting sanction round. To foresee for coming, as they depend on Russian gas. Also, in all likelihood, an oil boycott, like the coal boycott before, will not come into effect immediately, but only in a few weeks of months. This is to give countries that have that time to look for alternatives. Just as Germany wants.
According to Brussels insiders, a Commission proposal will certainly not come before the second round of the French elections next weekend. Brussels is afraid that otherwise Marine Le Pen, the radical right-wing opponent of current president Emmanuel Macron, will get the wind in his sails. High energy prices in France were previously the start of the yellow vest protest movement, which Macron found it difficult to calm down.
Is the European sanctions approach really failing? The Commission has strongly defended the policy from the start. Since the outbreak of the war on February 24, Brussels has had a total of five “huge” sanctions packages, in the words of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Indeed, there is an unparalleled package of sanctions. Russia is now it most heavily sanctioned country in the world, it is over Iran in this regard.
Von der Leyen includes the EU has opted for ‘targeted’, punitive measures against the power and not against the population, which has nothing to do with the conflict. In the world of economic warfare its kind of ‘in’. According to the proponents, you can see them as the economic equivalent to precision bombing.
Von der Leyen went on to talk about the step-by-step approach to keep in mind, in case Poetry escalates further.
But facts are that a new offensive has begun in the Donbas, and more and more atrocities against Ukrainian burgers are coming out day by day.
In a session with his ministers and high bosses from the gas and oil industry, the Russian president recently emerged combative† The consequences of all those clashes are “extreme events”, but “especially for the emergence they set”.
Too late and too weak
Ask Peter van Bergeijk and it doesn’t surprise him at all. The professor of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam is one of the most important sanctions experts in the Netherlands. He thinks the EU is acting too late and too weak. “I fall out of my chair every time Brussels presents a new sanction package. It wasn’t until the fifth pack that the big ones were hit. They should have done that much sooner. This approach is not working.”
He is particularly critical of the ‘purposeful’, acclaimed by Brussels. In recent decades, it has been proven often enough that these never work, he says. “The idea that you are associated with that is naive. Their loyalty doesn’t disappear when you take pleasure boats.” In fact, there is a good chance that they will move closer to the leader. “Intimates of heads of state are often referred to when they are on a sanctions list.”
According to Van Bergeijk, it is better to intervene quickly and hard, in which the means in particular have to be taken. Russia alone now earns – daily – almost 800 million euros from the sale of gas and oil to the EU, according to figures from the Brussels think tank Bruegel. He also says that Brussels must immediately disconnect all Russian banks from the international payment system Swift, and not like now, just a part.
Escape routes
Don’t you do it according to such a big bang scenario, then you give the opportunity to create escape routes. That is exactly what you see happening now, says Van Bergeijk. Immediately after the start of the war, Russian oil exports collapsed, as Western companies (Shell, Eni, Total) took independent measures (for fear of reputational damage from possible later legal consequences). But now exports are on the rise again, figure out Bloomberg financial news agency recently. The volumes are now even higher than before the war. India and China have jumped into the gap. It probably won’t be temporary.
“Slowly tightening the thumbscrews does not work,” concludes Van Bergeijk. The ‘intelligent typical’ are actually nonsensical. “They are especially good for showing your own population that you are doing something. Imposing a travel ban on fifty people is concrete. We eventually see slowness in Brussels, as EU countries fear that their own burgers will suffer too much.”
A risk of the tough approach that Van Bergeijk advocates is that Europe could turn the Russian citizen against it. If their economy and their country threaten to emerge, they can en masse rally the leader, develop rally ‘around the flag’-effect.
The targeted many hurt ordinary. The economy will shrink by 8.5 percent this year, according to a prognosis from the IMF Tuesday, the origins are sky-high and foreign employers are leaving the country in droves.
Nicholas Mulder, a historian at Cornwell University in New York and a second sanctions expert, says in a interview Met The Atlantic Ocean“There are great people who think this is right about the total pressure, but wanted people who we consider to be the backbone of the anti-war movement.”
He starts hitting the entire civilian population hard, because it is precisely liberal countries and citizens that take place. If you act when they are one, you will fall into ‘fascist and ultra-nationalist’ thinking yourself. in dictatorially-run countries and not practice punishments who are unlucky enough to live in such a country.”
Van Bergijk recognizes that broad and heavy effects” “have undesired side effects. This is mainly why many countries have opted for ‘targeted’ in recent decades, he explains. But in his view, the point is correct that they are especially good at failing, and not undermining a country’s wealth. That is ultimately the basis of the war activities.
“Broad there are no panacea, there are nasty side effects”, Van Bergeijk. “But micro-sanctions are placebos.”
A version of this article also in NRC in the morning of April 20, 2022