The EU and the G7 are currently negotiating the final details of a plan to impose a price cap on the maritime trade of refined petroleum products made in Russia, following a similar initiative that limited the price of Russian seaborne crude to $60 per barrel.
The crude cap, imposed in early December, is costing Moscow €160 million per day, von der Leyen said, an apparent reference to a recent report released by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean (CREA).
Von der Leyen also said her team is working to design legal ways to enable the EU to confiscate the Russian-owned assets that have been frozen across nine packages of sanctions, including billions of foreign reserves held by the Russian Central Bank.
“We are making Putin pay for his atrocious war,” von der Leyen said.
The extra funds raised through confiscation are meant to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction, which the European Commission estimates to be worth at least €600 billion.
Von der Leyen, however, did not offer any new hints on how confiscation, an unprecedented and risky idea, will be made legally possible.
As a first step, she said, the Commission will provide €1 billion in “fast recovery” funds to cover Ukraine’s most urgent needs.
During the joint press conference, von der Leyen welcomed the raids recently conducted by Ukrainian police as part of a corruption scandal involving illicit payments to deputy ministers and over-inflated military contracts, which led to the dismissal of several top officials.
Reforms in the fight against corruption are one of the seven conditions that the Commission introduced in Ukraine’s bid for EU membership.
“I am comforted to see that your anti-corruption bodies are on alert and effective in detecting corruption cases,” von der Leyen said.
Other announcements made by von der Leyen included a €150-million initiative to purchase vital energy equipment for Ukraine, the sending of 2,400 electricity generators and a memorandum on renewable gases, as well as a €10-million grant to support childcare...........
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/02/02/eu-heads-to-ukraine-for-summit-to-boost-integration-as-anniversary-of-invasion-nears
