EU Member States have reached an agreement to extend sanctions against Russia after deciding to remove two businessmen from the sanctions list, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.
The deal still requires formal approval, but EU ambassadors have now agreed on the extension.
At the request of France and Luxembourg, Russian-Uzbek businessman Alisher Usmanov and Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman will be removed from the list. In return, the sanctions will be extended for 36 months.
Until now, the sanctions had to be renewed every six months with the unanimous backing of all Member States.
The renewal should normally have been approved last week but Latvia, in particular, strongly opposed removing the two names from the list. The deadline was therefore pushed back until Tuesday at 11.59 p.m.
The Irish presidency of the Council of the EU has now launched a written procedure to formally endorse the agreement. A spokesperson confirmed that “certain individuals” had been taken off the list, but did not name those removed.
Belgium abstained during the vote, a European diplomat said, and according to Bloomberg, Latvia also planned to abstain.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU has imposed sanctions on about 3,000 individuals and organisations accused of involvement in undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
