Tabnak – The US House of Representatives is voting today to impose new sanctions against Russia and Iran as well as North Korea. Meanwhile, as the possibility has been raised for the European firms to be targeted by the proposed sanctions, EU has warned the US that it may take retaliatory measures.
According to The Financial Times, Brussels is preparing to retaliate against the US if Washington pushes ahead with far-reaching new sanctions on Russia that hit European companies.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, has called for an urgent review of how Brussels should respond if Europe’s energy companies or other businesses are targeted by sanctions under discussion in the US Congress.
According to a note prepared for a commission meeting on Wednesday, and seen by the Financial Times, Brussels "should stand ready to act within days” if the US measures were "adopted without EU concerns being taken into account”.
Earlier, Germany and Austria had strongly criticized US plans to impose sanctions on the European companies involved in the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline and threatened to retaliate.
However, the US House of Representatives is expected to vote on Tuesday on the legislation. An earlier version of the bill was passed in the Senate by a vote of 97-2 in June. However, that legislation concerned only Moscow and Tehran, forcing legislators to postpone the bill’s passage as they negotiated the additional sanctions for Pyongyang.
The Bloomberg notes that Nord Stream 2 is specifically named in the US bill as a threat to Europe's energy independence -- a view shared by some Eastern European countries, especially Poland, but not by core European Union nations that need the cheap additional gas supply the pipeline promises to deliver.
But the way the bill is written also threatens firms that work on other Russian pipelines, including Turkish Stream, already under construction, and even any upgrades to the old pipeline system that runs through Ukraine.
At the same time, Russian officials have warned that the new round of sanctions will backfire as it harms the interests of both nations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia was carefully watching the course of events that could lead to a new round of sanctions by the US Congress on Moscow.
"We consider such a continuation of the rhetoric of sanctions counterproductive and harmful to the interests of both countries,” said Peskov, adding that it was too early to speak about any potential countermeasure from Russia as reports suggest US President Donald Trump is still undecided on signing off on the Congress bill.
The US and its allies in Europe imposed economic and military sanctions on Russia after the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea held a referendum in 2014 and rejoined Russia. The sanctions have been extended several times.
However, under the new sanctions bill, US President Donald Trump would no longer be allowed to lift sanctions against Russia, Iran or North Korea unilaterally. Instead, he would need to provide a written letter to Congress explaining why he wanted to lift sanctions, after which Congress would have 30 days to consider whether it wants to honor the president’s request.
