BRUSSELS, July 30 (RIA Novosti) - The new round of sanctions against Russia announced by the European Union do not target the country's natural gas sector, a source at the European Commission told reporters Wednesday.
“The gas sector is completely and totally excluded from the scope of sanctions we are going to publish tomorrow,” the source said.
The European Union agreed Tuesday on a new set of sectoral economic sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian crisis, which limit Russian state-owned financial institutions’ access to EU capital markets, impose an embargo on trade in arms, establish an export ban for dual-use goods for military end users and curtail Russian access to sensitive technologies, particularly in the oil sector. The sanctions are to be published on July 31 and go into effect on August 1.
Russia’s envoy to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, said last week that the sanctions were “a road to nowhere” and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said such actions toward Russia were a way to conceal protectionist measures in the interests of certain companies.
