EU fourteenth package of sanctions against Russia
The Council adopted new restrictive measures against Russia, through Regulation (EU)
The new package includes, amongst others, the following restrictive measures:
The measures of particular relevance for the shipping industry are the following:
Transports
For the first time, the EU sanctioned specific vessels contributing to Russia’s warfare against Ukraine, or violating or circumventing EU sanctions against Russia (e.g. transporting oil or petroleum products in complete disregard of the price cap framework).
The full list of sanctioned vessels can be found in Annex XLII of Council Regulation (EU) 2024/1745 (link).
Sanctioned vessels will be banned from entering EU ports, and EU operators will be prohibited from operating, crewing, insuring and providing assistance to such vessels, or making ship-to-ship transfers with them.
Furthermore, the EU widened the flight ban against Russia-related aircrafts. The prohibition to land in, take off from or overfly the EU territory has been extended to non-scheduled flights with regard to which a Russian subject is in a position to “effectively determine the place or time for its take-off or landing”. Aircraft operators shall provide, for non-scheduled flights, information needed for the purpose of verifying compliance with the newly introduced provision, including “credible and satisfactory information” regarding the actual ultimate beneficial owner of the aircraft/the aircraft charterer and official documents displaying the full details of all passengers and crew members.
Finally, the EU also extended the prohibition on the transport of goods by road within the territory of the EU? so as to cover EU operators which are owned 25% or more by a Russian subject.
Energy
The new art. 3r Reg. 833/2014 prohibits reloading services in the territory of the Union for the purposes of transshipment operations of liquified natural gas (LNG) falling under CN code 2711 11 00, originating in Russia or exported from Russia. This covers both ship-to-ship transfers and ship-to-shore transfers, as well as re-loading operations, and does not affect import but only re-export to third countries via the EU. Moreover, the new disposition prohibits to provide, directly or indirectly, technical assistance, brokering services, financing or financial assistance related to reloading services of LNG.
New investments, as well as the provision of goods, technology and services for the completion of LNG projects under construction, such as Arctic LNG 2 and Murmansk LNG are prohibited. Import restrictions are introduced on Russian LNG through EU terminals not connected to the natural gas system.
Art. 3r Reg. 833/2014 shall not apply until 26 March 2025 for the execution of contracts concluded before 25 June 2024. Finally, it should be noted that the restrictive measures set for by the new art. 3r § 1 and 2 shall not apply to reloading services necessary for the bunkering of liquified natural gas fuelled vessels.?