Pablo R. SuanzesBrussels Correspondent

Brussels Correspondent

Updated Wednesday, February 21, 2024-12:03

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Coreper, the body that brings together the ambassadors of the 27 to the EU, unanimously gave the green light this Wednesday to the 13th package of sanctions against Russia, coinciding with the second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. The final decision, by written procedure, will be made official before Saturday, the anniversary date, when the Belgian Presidency gets Hungary to withdraw its traditional blockade or even veto.

"We have an agreement in package number 13! We added almost 200 people and entities to our list, which now amounts to more than 2,000. With this round we take further action against entities involved in sanctions circumvention and in the sectors military and defense," announced the high representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell.

In the new package, one of the largest in nominal terms, up to 200 names of companies and individuals are added, as they have said. From a sectoral point of view, diplomatic sources explain, "this package focuses on the acquisition networks of drone components that end up in the Russian military complex and then on the Ukrainian battlefield.

It includes several Russian companies but also third parties. countries

", such as China or Turkey. That has been precisely the excuse used by Viktor Orban this time, the expansion to Chinese firms because it will anger Beijing.

The agreement had been made since the 26th, but Hungary asked for more time and after the required paripé, it was approved, as it has ended up doing each and every time before, after protecting Orthodox religious leaders, Russian businessmen or putting you hit specific companies or sectors. Now, the legal services of the Council of the EU are polishing the final text.

The ambassadors have also extended, for six more months, the current sanctions regime (which High Representative Josep Borrell has proposed renaming as the Navalny regime), which already includes around

2,000 sanctioned people and companies

.

"I welcome the agreement on our 13th sanctions package against Russia. We must continue to degrade Putin's war machine. With a total of 2,000 listed, we keep the pressure high on the Kremlin.

We are also further cutting Russia's access to the drones

", celebrated the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

MILLIONAIRE AID TO kyiv

The ambassadors will also address today, with the hope of definitively settling the issue, the joint purchase of weapons and the so-called European Peace Facility, which despite its name is the instrument that has been used in the last 24 months to provide military assistance to kyiv. It is the fund that allows, with repeated disbursements of 500 million euros, to compensate the countries that donate their arsenal to Ukraine.

The agreement for the renewal of the community budget, sealed on February 1 at an extraordinary Summit, contemplates

assistance of up to 50 billion to Ukraine

over the next four years. And create within that mechanism a specific section only for Ukraine. But there are countries like Germany that believe that the contribution system is too hard on their accounts, since it is based on national income. And

others who denounce 'freeloader' effects

, since there are countries, especially in the Baltic and Ukraine's neighbors, that after having handed over their stocks, some of them even with material from the Soviet era, are taking advantage to modernize at the expense of the others, taking into account that they had already planned to purchase weapons or vehicles before the Russian invasion. The example that is heard these days, for the better, in Brussels is that of Denmark, which has repeated that it will give its entire

stock

of certain weapons or ammunition for the defense of the East of the invaded country.

Another point of friction, which makes an agreement in the coming days complicated, is the insistence of France and others with more specialized industries that all the money from that fund, whose spending ceiling will rise to 5,000 million as Borrell has requested, be allocated to buy material produced on the continent. Macron does not want this expected investment in Defense to end up in the pockets of North American, Turkish or Korean companies, but just as happened in 2023, when there was a very tough debate about the vital ammunition that Zelensky was begging for to survive. Everyone shares the philosophy, at least in principle, but Europe does not have much of the necessary material or ammunition, and waiting to produce it, as Paris would like, represents a dangerous delay.