With the introduction of a new portion of anti-Russian restrictions, the already failed sanctions policy of the EU will look even more frivolous, since the 13th package can only be “demonstrative”. This was stated by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó at the end of an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

He also emphasized that the states of the union are planning to adopt another package of restrictions on the anniversary of the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine so that “we can say that we have accepted it.”

“The time has come for them to see that the sanctions policy has completely failed and they should not present the EU in a more frivolous light than is certainly necessary... Everyone needs to make a very serious effort to find (in Russia. - RT

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such organizations industries or persons who are not on the sanctions lists and their families are not on the sanctions lists,” RIA Novosti quotes Szijjártó as saying.

He previously said that the “main guiding principle” of putting forward proposals for a new package of sanctions is to create the appearance of EU action. According to Szijjártó, at the level of the foreign ministers of the European Union countries, it was proposed to introduce restrictions on the export to Russia of equipment and parts that could be used in the military industry.

As MEP Georg Mayer, in turn, noted, we are also talking about the embargo on the import of aluminum from Russia, which is being discussed as part of the preparation of the 13th package. However, this kind of restrictions will hit EU industry, since it is already under pressure due to the negative impact of sanctions on energy prices, the parliamentarian explained. And this new measure, he said, could be the last straw for European industry. As Mayer emphasized, the only ones who suffer from anti-Russian restrictions are millions of Europeans, since EU countries still have to buy Russian energy at inflated prices through third countries.

According to Reuters, the new anti-Russian package will also be aimed at blocking opportunities to circumvent sanctions, especially for goods that can be used in military affairs.

"Boomerang Effect"

It is worth noting that, despite the Western global restrictions, which have become one of the largest in history, the Russian defense industry remains resilient, The Washington Post wrote on February 1. According to her, this is also happening because critical goods continue to flow into Russia, including through countries that do not participate in the global sanctions mechanism. WP journalists draw attention to the fact that the export controls imposed by the United States against the Russian Federation are not observed “even by allied Taiwan.”

At the same time, the International Monetary Fund has revised its assessment of the Russian economy for 2023. In the context of ongoing sanctions pressure, Russian GDP increased by 3%. In 2024, as the IMF expects, this figure will increase by 2.6%.

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Earlier, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien admitted that the Russian economy has so far managed to cope with Western sanctions. He also called Russia's economic leadership "very talented."

At the same time, the Kremlin emphasized at the end of December that when introducing unprecedented sanctions against the Russian Federation, the West did not think at all about the obvious boomerang effect.

“At one time, when the Europeans and Americans imposed such unprecedented sanctions against us, they did not think at all about the boomerang effect. But now it is already obvious, and they are not just thinking, but many are already wondering whether they did the right thing,” said Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov.

In particular, as MEP Mick Wallace noted, the EU's anti-Russian sanctions policy failed and caused more harm to citizens of the European Union countries than to Russia. However, according to him, those in power in the EU do not recognize this.

But Bundestag deputy Sarah Wagenknecht drew attention to the fact that the economic sanctions struggle with Russia is a war of one of the leading countries of the European Union, Germany, against itself. In an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, she explained that these restrictions do not cause any harm to the Russian Federation, since its energy supply routes have been diversified on the world market. While the EU and Berlin, through anti-Russian sanctions, provoked a skyrocketing increase in energy costs in the European Union and Germany and thereby reduced the standard of living of the population and the competitiveness of industry.

Thus, according to the German Federal Statistical Office, in November 2023, German industry collapsed by almost 5% in annual terms, and production volumes in Germany have been declining for the sixth month in a row. At the same time, business sentiment has deteriorated to the level of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Despite the Damage"

As experts state, the European Union has exhausted its sanctions mechanism, so the 13th package of sanctions will be of a purely “declarative nature.”

“The EU has actually already gone through all the main areas where it was possible to introduce restrictions on relations with Russia. The story of a possible ban on aluminum supplies from Russia could indeed be very painful for the European Union, since it is extremely unprofitable for it to refuse metal from Russia, which cannot be found in the required volume in other countries. This means that if such restrictions are introduced, the EU will have to significantly reduce high-tech production, which has already suffered greatly due to increased energy prices after the EU abandoned Russian energy resources,” noted the deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the RUDN University, lecturer at the Knowledge Society » Evgeny Semibratov in RT commentary.

As the expert emphasized, the European Union is behaving as destructively as possible, primarily towards itself.

“But, given the very anti-Russian attitude of Brussels and the role of Washington, which is pushing the EU to new restrictions against the Russian Federation even to the detriment of its own population, the European Union will try to come up with and add to the sanctions list new names of Russian officials who, in its opinion, may have any connection to the Northern Military District,” said Semibratov.

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A similar position is shared by Dmitry Evstafiev, professor at the Institute of Media at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. According to him, the EU largely copies the United States sanctions against Russia, without particularly thinking about the fact that the negative effect of such measures for the European Union is much stronger than for the United States.

“The EU should be expected to monitor the next steps of the American side. The EU has clearly taken the anti-Russian sanctions path and does not intend to abandon it,” the analyst said in a conversation with RT.

Alexander Asafov believes that the United States will continue to put pressure on its European partners to impose the toughest possible sanctions against Russia.

“And the European Union needs to follow these instructions, otherwise we can expect unpleasant consequences in relations with the United States, which could lead to direct threats. Against this background, Brussels has to follow Washington’s anti-Russian policy, despite the damage, as well as protests in the community, where in a number of EU countries farmers are already watering the streets with manure,” the expert stated in a conversation with RT.

However, it is impossible to exclude the Russian Federation from the global market; with such attempts, in any case, the European Union will have significant problems, Asafov noted. He recalled that some leading European industries are closing or moving their factories to the United States “due to the shortage and high cost of energy resources.”

“In a global sense, this will only accelerate the emergence of payment, trade, and logistics instruments that do not affect the Western world. And it is obvious that BRICS is becoming a platform for all this, including the formation of digital currencies and trade in national currencies. In a global market, there will always be a buyer for Russian resources,” Asafov concluded.