As the dangers of the policy have risen, EU leaders have taken a step back from imposing an immediate embargo on Russian crude and petroleum products imports, reports List23.
Immediate embargo on Russian fossil fuels
Imposing an immediate embargo on Russia’s fossil fuels “from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and the whole of Europe into a recession,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said of German lawmakers this week.
According to BP, Russia’s crude and petroleum products exported to Europe are the second largest bilateral flow of oil between any two trading partners in the world.
Russia provided 29 percent of Europe’s crude imports, 59 percent of the continent’s petroleum product imports in 2019, the last year before the epidemic (Statistical review of world energy, BP, 2020).
No other trading partner came close to Russia’s stock market, which would make it extremely difficult to replace in the near future.
As oil prices weighed the practical difficulties, even speculation about a possible ban drove oil prices substantially higher this week, with traders concerned that prices could fall while other EU leaders dissatisfied the idea.
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Source: List23
