Sanctions on Russian energy still in EU's toolkit, says Tuppurainen
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Loading... - Jorge Escamilla
- 30 Mar 2022
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THE EUROPEAN UNION has yet to reach a consensus on sanctions on Russian energy, but they remain in the toolkit, Minister for European Affairs and Ownership Steering Tytti Tuppurainen (SDP) stated on YLE A-studio on Monday.
“There’s readiness to especially sanction coal and oil, but natural gas is also being discussed,” she revealed.
Finland is prepared to recourse to tougher sanctions, according to her. “We aren’t ruling out any measures. We’re ready for tough measures,” she said, adding that decisions on sanctions are made primarily based on an overall assessment that includes an estimate of the effectiveness of existing sanctions.
Tuppurainen also commented on the situation of a couple of state-owned companies with operations in Russia. VR, the railway company that suspended its services to and from Russia on Sunday, made its decision based on sanctions targeted at rail traffic, she viewed. Fortum continues to operate in the country and will continue to make decisions about its operations independently.
“I’m sure the company is on top of things when it comes to the risks of having business operations linked to Russia,” said Tuppurainen.
She added that she had talked with the company’s management even though she will not influence its decisions.
“The EU has observed that we must reduce dependence on Russian markets, and first and foremost we must cut off our dependence related to Russian fossil energy. These are the kinds of messages that are surely heard by the management of Fortum,” she said.
Fortum and its German subsidiary Uniper operate 12 power plants in Russia, with a combined power generation capacity of 15.5 gigawatts and heat production capacity of 10.2 gigawatts. The Russian operations contributed about 20 per cent, or 500 million euros, of the energy company’s comparable operating profit in 2021. Read More...
