In the negotiations on an oil embargo against Russia, the member states and the EU Commission have made "great progress" in the past few days, but no breakthrough.

The French Council Presidency and the Commission announced on Sunday that "we still have work to do in a spirit of solidarity to complete the guarantees" that are necessary for the oil supplies of those countries that have so far been supplied by services from Russia.

Thomas Gutschker

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

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This mainly affects Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which do not have access to the sea.

Bulgaria and Croatia also called for more support, as diplomats reported.

This involves, on the one hand, longer transition periods and, on the other hand, financial assistance.

The EU Commission proposed last week that imports of refined products from Russia should be phased out by the end of October and of crude oil by the end of the year.

Hungary and Slovakia should get an additional year and the Czech Republic half a year more time.

Budapest, on the other hand, asked for a period of five years.

Since then, further connectors and transitional aid for the conversion of refineries have been negotiated.

Informal target missed

Hungary and Bulgaria have large refineries that are designed for Russian crude oil and can only process other types of crude oil with significant additional investments.

Greece, Cyprus and Malta also pressed for guarantees on the planned transport ban for Russian oil.

These countries maintain large tanker fleets and want to prevent Western partners from simply taking over this business.

After a two-hour meeting of the member states, difficult technical issues were discussed on Sunday afternoon, which could only be clarified in the course of the new week.

The European Union thus missed its informal goal of enacting the sixth package of sanctions this Monday – as a counterpoint to the victory celebrations organized by Russia.

After all, the heads of state and government of the G-7 countries held a conference in the evening together with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj.

Japan also agreed that it would no longer purchase oil products from Russia.

The American government announced that – as planned by the EU – it would criminalize consulting services for Russian customers and sanction three Russian state broadcasters.

In addition, the United States is extending its export bans to industrial goods such as bulldozers.

They also impose individual sanctions on 27 Gazprombank managers.

However, the bank itself may continue to process European energy transactions.