On Thursday, December 15, the EU leaders agreed to extend economic sanctions against Russia for six more months, as declared at the press conference held by Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande in Brussels at the EU summit.
The Permanent Representatives Committee will adopt the formal decision within the next few days. “Even the Russia-friendly states overall agreed at the EU summit in Brussels on Monday there would be no easing of sanctions”, as еuobserver.com states.
The current term of sectoral economic sanctions against Russia expires on January 31, 2017. Under the reached agreements, they will be extended until July 31, 2017.
At the same time, the embargo on food imports imposed by Russia in summer 2015 was extended in June 2016 until December 31, 2017, by Presidential Decree No. 305.
Therefore, sanctions will stay in effect for at least another six months until the middle of 2017.
Interestingly, the World Bank assumes that the economic sanctions imposed against Moscow will stay in force until the year 2018. Only one baseline scenario implies the lifting of sanctions in 2017.
It has to be recalled that the current mutual sanctions have decreased the cargo volume between the Russian Federation and the European Union. The Russian embargo on food against the EU alone reduced the cargo traffic from Europe by 19%. At the same time, the EU imposed import restrictions on certain equipment too. However, it was the Russian economic crisis that caused a considerable disruption of import from Europe and decreased the import purchasing power.
According to the information taken from TASS news agency and tut.by, certifikat.by and провэд.рф Internet resources