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The European Union will launch an eleventh wave of sanctions against Russia and will seek to stifle attempts to evade economic penalties introduced within the wake of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a senior EU official told CNBC on Thursday.
“Europe introduced 10 packages of sanctions. We will have one other package,” Mairead McGuinness, EU Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche on the Spring Meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington.
EU countries they were in talks about drafting a new round of sanctions against Russia in recent weeks, and McGuinness confirmed that an eleventh package of measures is within the pipeline.
“From our information, the sanctions are working and we will be doing more, but we want to have a look at full implementation,” McGuinness said. “What Russia is deprived of is each the financial resources and the technology needed to reinvent its war machine, they usually have problems on the battlefield.”
“We’ve got to ensure they do not find ways to bypass our sanctions, and I actually have repeatedly stressed that the deeper our sanctions go, the more impact they’ve, the more Russia will search for these ways, whether in other countries or in numerous bank accounts, to bypass them.” .
McGuinness said that along with proposing further sanctions against Moscow, Brussels will also seek to make sure the “effective” implementation of the sanctions, in order that individuals and entities are harder to bypass.
“We’ve got to ensure they do not find a option to circumvent our sanctions,” McGuinness said. “I actually have repeatedly stressed that the deeper our sanctions go, the more impact they’ve.”
She added: “Don’t underestimate the efforts Russia will make with its cronies around the globe to bypass our sanctions – they affect the Russian economy, they affect the Russian war machine.”
McGuinness was also asked if the EU would seek to punish countries that help Russia evade sanctions with new laws.
The U.S. Treasury Department last 12 months released a list of countries helping Russia circumvent the sanctions, including Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
McGuinness said the bloc focused as an alternative on attacking individuals and entities.
“We’re changing our laws to have a look at those involved in sanctions interventions,” McGuinness said. “In fact, relating to individuals or entities which can be breaking the law, we might see that we might then take motion.”
Some countries, including Estonia and France, have called on the EU to impose sanctions on Moldovan and Georgian oligarchs allegedly helping Russia destabilize Ukraine.
McGuinness said the EU is working with the US, UK, Canada and Japan, amongst others, to make sure the effective implementation of sanctions against Russia and to assemble intelligence on the country’s attempts to bypass the sanctions.