Borrell: EU fails to agree on 9th package of sanctions against Russia

EU members failed to agree on the ninth package of sanctions against Russia during a foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday, said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

The package proposed by the European Commission should include up to 200 individuals, companies and organizations, including three banks, military-industrial complexes, in addition to energy and mining companies.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier said the eight packages of sanctions the EU had introduced so far are already biting hard and now the bloc wanted to raise the pressure on Russia with a ninth package.

While diplomats said adding new names to the sanctions list had not been difficult to agree on, the bloc's foreign ministers could not yet adopt the full ninth package.

Borrell said there had been disagreement on some of the content and its possible impact, but did not go into details.

He said he hoped it could be approved later this week.

Sanctions require the unanimous backing of all the bloc's 27 member states, but most of the measures proposed in the first eight packages were approved by their representative European Council within weeks, though some were dropped or watered down.

The Commission said it further aimed to cut Russia's access to drones and unmanned aerial vehicles and ban the direct export of drone engines to Russia and to any third countries that could supply drones to Russia.

(Reuters)