Leading European Union countries are unwilling to develop sanctions and other “punishments” for Russia if it “invades Ukraine”, Bloomberg has reported
According to them, Germany, France, Italy and Spain want to focus on dialogue with Moscow before devising and imposing painful economic measures that would hit them as well. However, the rest of the member states argue that public support for sanctions threats would better deter Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We want to use prevention mode, that is the work of diplomacy, to try to explore different scenarios to have an answer for each of them and to make it clear that there will be an answer if any of the scenarios are applied”, – said Josep Borrell, EU foreign and security policy spokesman.
EU leaders plan to discuss the issue in Brussels during two-day summits and bilateral meetings, including with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski, on 15-16 December.
Earlier, US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Putin to convey the message that the West would impose much tougher sanctions in case of a “Russian invasion”.
According to sources familiar with the plans, these could include measures to remove major Russian banks from the Western financial system, as well as a German commitment not to commission the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
However, Germany believes this approach would leave no leverage over Russia in the future should the document be leaked to the media. German sympathisers argue that publishing a document with options would give Putin the fight he seeks and that anything damaging to Russia could affect EU member states, given their close economic ties.
Some European officials argue that waiting for Putin to budge before responding decisively with a concrete, tailored response would be more effective than laying out different options in advance, since some of them may not be used.
The caution on the part of some EU countries also reflects the fact that some members of the bloc do not share the U.S. belief that Putin is planning an “invasion of Ukraine”.