At the weekend, the ambassadors of the EU member states had to go to the confessional.

It was about the next, the sixth package of sanctions against Russia, which the EU Commission wants to launch on Tuesday.

Before that, she took the states to task, in small groups, to find out where the consensus is greatest and where the sore spots are.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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Michael Clauss, Germany's Permanent Representative to the EU, was there on Friday afternoon.

For him it was a relaxed conversation - because last week the federal government not only changed its position on heavy weapons for Ukraine.

In the ambassadors' deliberations on Wednesday, Clauss had spoken out in favor of an "ambitious expansion of the sanctions", including an oil embargo, according to internal minutes of the meeting, which are available to the FAZ.

The move came as a surprise to many member states.

Because when it came to energy, Germany had hitherto been on the brakes.

When the fifth sanctions package was about stopping coal imports from Russia, Berlin pushed through a transitional period of four months.

When it came to oil, it was always said that Russian deliveries could only be replaced by the end of the year.

Now, however, things could go much faster, as Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck publicly indicated.

An embargo had become "manageable," he said last Tuesday after talks in Warsaw.

Germany only gets 12 percent of its oil supplies from Russia.

At the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine, it was still 35 percent.

The remainder is accounted for by the refinery in Schwedt, which is majority owned by the Russian state-owned company Rosneft.

Habeck's plan: He wants to expropriate the refinery and then supply it with crude oil from other suppliers, which is landed in Rostock and Gdansk.

If the new Energy Security Act comes into force in time, this would be possible from the beginning of June.

Is Putin turning the tables?

Among his colleagues, EU ambassador Clauss campaigned for an oil embargo that would be provided with "sufficient transitional periods" - and made it clear that for Germany it was only a matter of weeks, not months.

This was supported by the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Ireland, alongside Poland and the Baltic states, which have long advocated an immediate oil and gas embargo.

On the other hand, countries such as Italy, Austria, Greece and Slovakia were skeptical.

Hungary expressed its opposition.

These countries are even more dependent on Russian energy supplies and fear price increases.

Björn Seibert, the head of the cabinet of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, campaigned at the meeting for "cleverly designed sanctions that should avoid negative effects on global markets".

As the minutes state, he "showed sympathy for price ceilings, provided these are applicable worldwide".

Russia would then have to accept discounts on the current world market price.

The American government also endorses this model;

the head of the central bank, Janet Yellen, recently specifically campaigned for it.

The advantage: global inflation would be dampened, and energy would become cheaper again for consumers.

The downside: Vladimir Putin would first have to agree to the plan.

Quite a few fear that he will instead turn the tables and stop gas deliveries.

Similar concerns are linked to calls for punitive tariffs on Russian energy supplies.

This is one of the reasons why Germany and others are working to quickly reduce dependence on oil and then stop signing any new contracts with Moscow.

The Dutch representative welcomed this as a "cautious approach" given that different derivatives and variants of oil had to be taken into account.

Quickly, only oil with a composition similar to that of the Russian raw product could be refined in Schwedt.

It is fairly certain that the particularly dependent states will insist on long transition periods if the Commission opts for this model.

Embargo would then mean: Exit in several intermediate steps.

Ban on transactions with Sberbank

It is still being debated whether civil nuclear cooperation with Russia should also be ended.

While Germany and Austria are in favor of it, Hungary is against it.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán signed a contract with Putin in 2014 to build two reactors in Paks and is already purchasing fuel rods from Russia.

Eighty percent of the energy supply would be at risk, said the Hungarian ambassador, even if this were to be banned.

The French nuclear industry also works closely with the state-owned company Rosatom, which has a branch in Paris.

The new sanctions package is to be discussed by the ambassadors on Wednesday and then decided by the end of the week - based on the pattern of previous rounds.

What is certain is that it prohibits any transactions with Sberbank.

The largest Russian bank, with a market share of around 35 percent, has so far been spared EU sanctions, but not American bans.

The bank was needed to process energy deliveries, it was said to justify it.

Now, however, Berlin has also changed its assessment and believes that Gazprombank is sufficient for this.

In addition, legal and consulting services from the EU are to be prohibited from working with Russian partners.

And of course other supporters of the war, including oligarchs and their relatives, are subject to entry and property bans.