Brussels: Leaders of the European Union (EU) have decided to expand its sanctions against Russia by adding 12 more names on the blacklist with travel ban and assets freeze while cancelling the EU-Russia summit, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said.
The decision was made by the leaders of the 28 EU member states who gathered in Brussels Thursday for the bloc’s spring summit, to be focused on economic issues but eclipsed by the Ukraine crisis.
The EU did not publish the 12 additional people’s name immediately, but Van Rompuy told a post-summit press conference that some of them are high ranking Russian officials, Xinhua reported.
Van Rompuy said if Russia took any further step to destabilise Ukraine, it would have far-reaching consequences.
European Commission (EC) President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters that the EC has been mandated by the member states to prepare targeted measures on Russia and the impact assessment of further sanctions against the country.
“We have been already working on this of course, and we are looking at broader areas that could have far-reaching consequences for the relations between the European Union and Russia,” said Barroso.
“So, it’s a broad range of economic areas where we are in fact preparing possible targeted measures,” he added.
Van Rompuy said that the EU would assess the situation, including any action and incident for triggering the targeted measures.
Facing sanctions from the West, Russia too a responded by barring a list of US politicians from entering the country.
The list came three days after the US imposed sanctions against at least seven senior Russian state officials and members of the parliament over Moscow’s recognition of Sunday’s referendum in the Ukrainian autonomous region of Crimea, in which joining Russia received landslide support from the region’s people.