EU countries failed Monday to finalise a deal that involved lifting sanctions on Russian oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, with negotiations to continue in Brussels, diplomats said. Multiple diplomats said earlier that member states had reached a provisional agreement to take the pair off the EU's blacklist as part of a compromise to extend sanctions on almost 3,000 other individuals and entities over the Ukraine war. But that deal failed to get final approval -- with one diplomat telling that Latvia had lodged a last-gasp objection.
Diplomats said that EU ambassadors would meet again at 0600 GMT on Tuesday to try to hammer out an agreement. The 27-nation bloc has been scrambling to reach a deal on extending the sanctions regime ahead of a deadline late Tuesday after France and Slovakia pushed for Russian-Uzbek billionaire Usmanov to be removed from the blacklist. Luxembourg then seized upon the demand by Paris to insist that if sanctions were lifted on Usmanov, then they should be lifted for Fridman as well.
Officials in Paris have cited "national security" concerns for their request on Usmanov, but refused publicly to give details. The Financial Times reported that the demand may be linked to a potential prisoner release deal involving French nationals held in Azerbaijan. Luxembourg has pushed for Fridman to be removed.
Diplomats said the move comes as he is suing the country for 15 billion euros ($17 billion) for freezing his assets under EU sanctions. More hawkish EU countries, including Poland and Baltic states, fiercely opposed the easing of the sanctions, arguing that pressure on Russia should be increased. In return for greenlighting the move as part of the provisional deal, they had got an agreement for the sanctions to remain in place for the next three years -- as opposed to the previous extensions of six months each.
Ukraine had reacted furiously to the prospect of the EU removing sanctions on the two prominent Russian businessmen. Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga decried the move, saying it would be "unacceptable and would send the wrong signal to Moscow at a time when pressure needs to increase". "On the contrary, sanctions need to be tightened," he wrote online.
Multiple EU diplomats insisted that despite the standoff over Usmanov, there was widespread agreement that the EU sanctions should not be allowed to lapse. EU top diplomat Kaja Kallasurged the bloc's member states Monday to maintain sanctions targeting Russia over the war on Ukraine. "Sanctions are a core pillar of our response to Russia's war" to deprive Moscow of funding, she told reporters in New York after a meeting of European Union foreign affairs ministers.
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