Does Tenth Sanctions Package Against Russian Federation Guarantee An 11th, 12th, 13th? Yes, It Does. UPDATE: From Ukraine Economy Minister Confirming Additional Sanctions Packages…
Does Tenth Sanctions Package Against Russian Federation Guarantee An 11th, 12th, 13th? Yes, It Does
The decision by the EU to increase during twelve months the depth and breadth of sanctions upon the public and private sectors within the Russian Federation demonstrate both strength and weakness in the unanimity of the EU as to the implementation of sanctions.
Strength in decisions by the EU require unanimity. Twenty-seven governments approved of each of the sanctions packages and have done so with relative speed considering the combined gravitational pull from twenty-seven bureaucracies along with the uber-bureaucracy at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Weakness within the EU sanctions packages as there are carve-outs, exceptions, and mitigations for some member countries. Some member countries have not applied all sanctions uniformly- or at all.
Each of the sanctions packages implemented thus far, and the sanctions to be included in the tenth package of sanctions could have been implemented all-at-once or robustly throughout 2022- or beginning in 2008 (Russian Federation invasion of Abkhazia South Ossetia Regions of the Republic of Georgia) or in 2014 (Russian Federation invasion of the Crimea Peninsula and Donbas (Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast) as the government of Ukraine had repeatedly requested.
The sanctions packages have been implemented as a rheostat rather than a switch. The result has been to permit the government of the Russian Federation to focus upon circumventing or negating as best as possible individual sanctions, one-by-one or in smaller clusters prior to engaging with the contents of the next sanctions package.
Why were more sanctions not implemented earlier? Because the EU believed more important to limit the impact of sanctions upon themselves (particularly the taxpayers who elect the EU leadership) than punish the Russian Federation.
What does a tenth package of sanctions mean? That there will be an eleventh and twelfth and thirteenth because the Russian Federation is showing unexpected and for many unwelcomed resilience; and other countries, including members of the EU, allies of the EU (including the United States), partners of the EU (including the United States), and outliers of the EU (for example, Republic of Turkiye, Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Iran, and People’s Republic of China) continue to engage with the Russian Federation and they will not be dissuaded from that engagement. They may limit engagement, but not relinquish that engagement.
UPDATE: 22 February 2022- “We need to strengthen sanction policy, because the war is still lasting. It's very important for us. So that's why we hope that we will see these sanctions in the tenth package, otherwise, maybe in the next packages.” Yulia Svyrdenko, Minister of Economy of Ukraine.
