Coal, then oil: the packages that touched energy revenue

Sanctions on banks and technology are painful but indirect. Energy revenue is the thing itself, and everyone knew that restricting it would cost the countries imposing it as much as anyone.

In April 2022 the European Union adopted its fifth package, which included a ban on coal imports from russia, with a wind-down period. In June the sixth package introduced a phased restriction on seaborne crude oil and refined products, alongside the removal of further banks — Sberbank among them — from SWIFT.

What made these harder than the earlier rounds

Unanimity. Twenty-seven member states with very different energy mixes and very different exposure had to agree, and several were landlocked and pipeline-dependent. The result carried exemptions and transition periods, and it was criticised for that.

I would put it differently. Six months earlier, the idea that the European Union would restrict russian oil at all would have been dismissed as unserious. Judged against that, the direction of travel was the achievement.