The European Union is considering cutting more than 20 banks from SWIFT, the international payments system, as well as lowering a price cap on Russian oil and banning the Nord Stream gas pipelines as part of a new sanctions package that aims to increase pressure on Moscow to end its war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The European Commission is consulting member states over the plans, according to people familiar with the matter. A decision on timing of potential restrictions has yet to be taken, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. EU sanctions require the backing of all member states, and could change before they\u2019re formally proposed and adopted.<\/p>\n
The EU is also weighing additional transaction bans on about two dozen banks and some \u20ac2.5 billion (US$2.84 billion) worth of fresh trade restrictions as it seeks to further curtail Russia\u2019s revenues and ability to get its hands on the technology needed to make weapons.<\/p>\n
As part of the package under the discussion, the bloc\u2019s executive arm is also planning to propose lowering the Group of Seven oil price cap to about US$45, the people said.<\/p>\n
That move would likely require backing from the US. The price threshold, which bans G-7 service providers from transporting and dealing with crude sold above the cap, is currently set at US$60. G-7 finance ministers failed to reach an agreement to bring the cap down at a meeting in Banff, Canada, this week.<\/p>\n
The discussions come as US President Donald Trump has urged Moscow and Kyiv to hold direct talks over a ceasefire and peace agreement. Trump has so far shied away from imposing new sanctions on Russia, despite threatening to do so several times. Sanctions introduced under President Joe Biden remain in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union is considering cutting more than 20 banks from SWIFT, the international payments system, as well…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[56335,3662,943,2000,299,5187,2557,1699,1945,1824,42647,10546,2301,55611,5422,25146,657,2581],"class_list":{"0":"post-127655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-banff","9":"tag-bloomberg","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-commission","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-friedrich-merz","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-group-of-seven","19":"tag-kyiv","20":"tag-moscow","21":"tag-nord-stream","22":"tag-russian-oil","23":"tag-swift","24":"tag-ukraine","25":"tag-us-president-donald-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114562137107603197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}