(Reuters) – A new round of European Union sanctions against Russia for waging war against Ukraine is under discussion but adoption of the package is unlikely earlier than “deep into May”, Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said late on Monday.
It would be unrealistic to expect anything earlier, the Polish state-run news agency PAP cited Rau as saying.
“All of this still in the discussion phase … I think that the matter will be closed no sooner than deep into May,” Rau said. “You can’t expect anything sooner.”
Poland this month presented a proposal for a new set of sanctions against Russia, including a ban on pipeline oil and diamond imports. The proposal marked an opening salvo in what is expected to be long and complex negotiations among the bloc’s 27 members.
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine 14 months ago, which Russian President Vladimir Putin termed a “special military operation”, the EU has adopted 10 sanctions packages against Russian individuals and companies, inflicting economic and making financing the war more difficult.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editng by Robert Birsel)
