“Today, the Coalition of the Willing convened,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote Saturday morning, in a grandiose announcement on X, which smacked of FOMO.
After months calling for the EU to have a seat at the table in any Ukraine-Russia peace talks, no EU-level leader even got a seat on the train which carried the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and Britain into Kyiv to hand Russia an ultimatum.
The interrailing boys called US President Donald Trump and apparently got his backing to make an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: agree a 30-day ceasefire starting Monday or face unbearable economic pressure.
“If the ceasefire is violated, we are agreed that massive sanctions would be prepared and coordinated between Europeans and Americans,” said French President Emmanuel Macron.
But for a ceasefire to be violated, it surely has to be in place to start with. Right on cue, Putin rejected it as a non-starter.
So … where are the sanctions?
There was no sign of them in Brussels on Monday, where ambassadors of the EU member countries met to cobble together another piddling package of sanctions against Russia.
Now in their 17th round, this latest volley of sanctions is hardly going to put a dent in Russia’s war economy. For that the EU would do better closing the loopholes in its existing sanctions – so porous that an entire fleet of Greek ships can slip through them.
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