The European Union has agreed its 21st package of sanctions against Russia, with the measures reached this morning, the European Commission has confirmed. Officials said the package is now in the process of being formally adopted through a written procedure, the final administrative step before it takes full effect. The Commission signalled that further details would be set out at a technical briefing scheduled for 1 p.m., following the main press briefing. The move marks the latest addition to a sanctions regime that has steadily expanded over the course of Russia's war against Ukraine.
One of the most closely watched elements of the new package concerns an exemption secured by Greece for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, transfers. During the negotiations, Athens obtained a carve-out that shields certain LNG transfer activity from the scope of the measures. The exemption quickly became a point of discussion, as journalists pressed the Commission on how it viewed a concession granted to a single member state within a package that is designed to apply broadly across the entire bloc.
The exemption also had a direct effect on the Commission's own guidance. According to questions raised at the briefing, the carve-out for Greece forced the Commission to backtrack on what had been written in the sanctions frequently asked questions, or FAQ, published last autumn. In other words, wording that had previously set out how the rules would apply to such transfers had to be revised to accommodate the exemption, an unusual reversal that drew attention to the way the package had been assembled behind the scenes.
Pressed for a political reaction, the Commission's spokesperson was cautious, pointing to the social media post issued by President Ursula von der Leyen as the institution's response. The spokesperson declined to go further, noting that a dedicated technical briefing on the 21st package would follow shortly and that more could be said once the formal adoption was complete. The careful tone underlined the sensitivity around the internal bargaining that shaped the final text of the package.
Explaining how such packages come together, the Commission set out the standard workflow: the Commission proposes the measures, the member states discuss them, and the member states ultimately adopt them. This, officials stressed, was the same format that had produced the previous 20 sanctions packages. The spokesperson maintained that those earlier packages were serving their intended purpose, hitting the Russian war economy where it hurts and, in an overall sense, supporting the European Union's efforts to help Ukraine.
The Greek exemption nonetheless raised a broader question, put directly to the Commission, about member states using their veto power to retroactively question the content of EU law, such as the earlier guidance. The spokesperson declined to be drawn into judging the practice, instead repeating the description of the agreed process. With the 21st package still being formally adopted by written procedure, the Commission said it would have more to say after the technical briefing, leaving the finer points of the LNG carve-out and its implications to be clarified later in the day.