On the 8th local time, the European Union approved the fifth round of sanctions against Russia, including a coal ban.

This is the first time the EU has imposed sanctions on Russian energy since Russia launched military operations against Ukraine.

　　On the 11th, the foreign ministers of EU member states held a meeting in Luxembourg to conduct further consultations on the embargo on Russian energy, but did not reach an agreement on the embargo on Russian oil.

　　Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said after the meeting that oil will likely be one of the areas where the EU will impose sanctions on Russia in the next step, but there are still differences among EU member states on the issue of the oil embargo against Russia. The meeting did not reach an agreement on an embargo on Russian oil.

　　Data show that Russia's coal exports account for about 15% of the world's total, making it the third largest supplier of coal.

Coal exports account for only 3.5% of Russia's export trade.

A quarter of Russia's coal exports go to the EU.

And 45% of the coal imported by the EU each year comes from Russia, with a total value of about 4 billion euros.

　　After threatening to impose energy sanctions on Russia for many days, the EU finally chose to “start” with coal and took the first step in the energy sanctions against Russia, but the EU is more concerned with its own interests, that is, the embargo on Russia’s oil and gas difficult to reach agreement on.

The analysis pointed out that, compared with oil and natural gas, coal is the easiest Russian-European energy trade to be cut off by the EU.

The EU pays Russia $20 million a day for coal, but $850 million for oil and gas.

　　The largest trade between the EU and Russia is in oil and gas transactions.

The EU needs 25% of its oil and 40% of its natural gas imports from Russia.

The outside world generally believes that Germany's attitude is crucial when it comes to whether to include oil and gas in sanctions against Russia.

Up to now, Germany, which is highly dependent on Russian energy, has been opposed to this.