The European Union has not yet found agreement on a sixth package of sanctions against Russia, its top diplomat Josep Borrell said after a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
“Unhappily, it has not been possible to reach an agreement today,” Borrell told reporters.
He said foreign ministers had decided, however, to provide an additional 500 million euros for arms purchases in support of Kyiv, taking the total sum of money the EU has earmarked for that purpose to 2 billion euros.
Lithuania said the bloc was being “held hostage by one member state”.
The ban on crude imports proposed by the European Commission in early May would be its harshest sanction yet in response to Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and includes carve-outs for EU states most dependent on Russian oil.
Germany, the European Union’s biggest economy and a major buyer of Russian energy, said it wanted a deal to authorise the oil embargo, which it suggested could last for years.
via Reuters
