Politico: EU may impose embargo on Russian aluminum in new sanctions package

Restrictions on Russian aluminum may appear in the new, 13th package of EU sanctions against Russia.

This was reported by Politico with reference to sources among EU diplomats.

According to the trade organization European Aluminum, which represents EU producers and advocates for strengthening restrictions on imports from Russian suppliers, previous sanctions packages left about 85% of Russian exports of the metal to the EU without restrictions.

The process of smelting aluminum requires a lot of electricity, and its prices are up to 40% of production costs. Because of this, sanctions against Russian aluminum will also be sanctions against the Russian energy industry.

According to sources, the EU is discussing a complete ban on aluminum from the Russian Federation. Members of the bloc hope to agree on a new sled package by February 24, 2024.

Hungary and some other eastern EU states do not support sanctions against Russiaʼs nuclear sector, while Rosatom is currently building two new reactors for Hungary. At the same time, many EU countries, in particular Germany, opposed sanctions on Russian liquefied gas.

• At the beginning of January, the EU included the group of Russian companies "Alrosa" and its general director Pavlo Marynychev in the list of sanctions. "Alrosa" is the leader in diamond mining in the world, mining 95% of diamonds in Russia and 27% of all diamonds in the world.