2024/2885(RSP) | [ParlTrack]

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2024/2885(RSP) Resolution on EU actions against the Russian shadow fleets and ensuring a full enforcement of sanctions against Russia

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Events

2024/11/14

EP - Decision by Parliament

Details

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on EU actions against the Russian shadow fleets and ensuring a full enforcement of sanctions against Russia.

The text adopted in plenary was tabled by the EPP, S&D, ECR, Renew, Greens/EFA groups and Members.

Russia is heavily dependent on sales of oil in terms of export earnings and budget revenues, making oil a key source of financing for its war in Ukraine. It is using old tankers, often uninsured and with unclear ownership, to export its crude oil and petroleum products abroad, despite EU, G7 and international sanctions. These activities have also raised fears over the risk of environmental disasters, including severe oil spills. As part of systematic efforts to undermine EU restrictive measures, Russia has spent an estimated EUR 9 billion on building up its ‘shadow fleet’ which provides a key financial lifeline for Russia in its illegal and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine.

Parliament denounced the risk these unsafe and uninsured Russian vessels pose to maritime security and to our European coastal Member States and marine ecosystems. It called for the EU and its Member States to intensify their efforts to curb sanctions evasion and circumvention by Russia, and to implement concrete measures to ensure maritime safety and prevent environmental hazards in European waters, in particular in the Baltic Sea.

The resolution also called for more targeted sanctions on the ‘shadow fleet’ in the next sanctions packages against Russia, such as designating all individual ‘shadow fleet’ vessels, as well as their owners, operators, managers, accounts, banks, insurance companies, etc. It called for an immediate ban on the use of Western vessels in the transport of Russian oil. In this regard, Members urged the European External Action Service and the EU Sanctions Envoy to reach out to the governments of the countries where the companies managing the ‘shadow tankers’ are registered and of the countries whose flag presence has increased substantially in EU waters since the imposition of the oil price cap. Furthermore, the EU and its Member States are called on to restrict Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels from accessing EU waters . Parliament also called for ship-to-ship transfers of Russian crude oil and oil products in EU waters to be banned.

Moreover, the EU, its Member States and its G7 partners are called on to enhance their cooperation with trading partners to more swiftly and effectively identify buyers of Russian oil and to cease purchasing oil products from them. Members called for these designated facilities to be included on the targeted sanctions list and for a full ban to be introduced on re-exported Russian refined oil products. They strongly recommended that the EU and its G7 partners significantly expand their sanctions lists to include additional vessels that circumvent their price caps and operate without respecting international standards.

The EU and its Member States are encouraged to enhance surveillance capabilities, especially drone and satellite monitoring to identify ‘shadow fleet’ vessels in EU waters and monitor activities.

Member States and the Commission are called on to:

- ensure sufficient environmental disaster preparedness, especially for large oil spills, and to ensure that Member State authorities cooperate closely, both together and with the European Maritime Safety Agency, to deal with large-scale, cross-border pollution disasters;

- work with international partners and stakeholders, including in the shipping, energy, insurance and financial sectors, to identify best practices for detecting and addressing sanctions evasion and mitigating environmental impacts in EU waters.

Lastly, Members called for support for the work of the EU Sanctions Envoy on anti-circumvention in order to prevent the systematic re-export of sanctioned EU goods to Russia, which is seriously undermining the effectiveness of EU sanctions and obstructing international efforts to end the war. They called, in this respect, for all candidate and potential candidate countries for EU accession to strictly align with EU sanctions in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine as a sign of their readiness to take on the obligations of EU membership.

Text adopted by Parliament, single reading

Documents

T10-0036/2024

2024/11/06