As a reaction to Russia’s illegal annexation of the Crimea and Sevastopol and destabilization in eastern Ukraine, the EU has adopted restrictive measures against Russia. The situation in Ukraine has become further exacerbated in recent weeks.
“Even after the tragedy with the shooting down of the Malaysian aircraft on July 17, Russia has not changed its behavior but continued destabilization of the eastern parts of Ukraine. This has resulted in, among other things, the EU and the United States adopting comprehensive measures against Russia, as they had announced that they would do in case of further destabilization,” says Brende in a press release.
An expanded meeting of the Norwegian Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense was set on Monday to discuss how Norway should respond to the EU and US sanctions against Russia.
The Foreign Ministry plans to open a service telephone line where the Norwegian business community can get information about the new measures from Wednesday 13 August. “We have had several meetings with Norwegian trade and industry about the restrictive sanctions that will now be introduced. Feedback from them is important in our further dialogue with the EU on clarifications of the details of the sanctions,” Brende said to Dagens Næringsliv.
Norway will implement the same measures as the EU introduced from July 31. The measures mainly involve:
- the list of persons and entities subject to the freezing of financial assets and travel restrictions will be extended.
- introduction of a ban on imports of goods from Crimea and Sevastopol. For the same area it will be prohibited to provide loans or other credit for infrastructure development in transport, telecommunication and energy sectors, forbidden to grant loans or other credit for exploitation of oil, gas or mineral resources, as well as the ban on the sale or export of key equipment and technology for these sectors in the Crimea and Sevastopol.
- introduction of a ban on import and export of weapons and defense from and to Russia and a ban on the export of multi-purpose products and technologies for military end-use in Russia.
- Export ban on goods for offshore oil exploration and production, Arctic oil exploration and production or shale oil projects in Russia. The ban covers only new contracts. Export of certain categories of goods to the Russian petroleum sector require prior permission from Norwegian authorities
