Athens has walked away from weeks of brinkmanship with a prize its shipping industry had lobbied hard to keep: the right to keep moving Russian liquefied natural gas to buyers outside the bloc. That concession, wrung from reluctant partners, is what finally cleared the European Union’s 21st sanctions package after talks that came close to collapse.
Under the derogation, Russian LNG can flow to third countries indefinitely as long as the delivery contracts predate the February 2022 invasion. Volumes are capped at 2025 levels, and Athens retains the power to veto any future termination of the loophole during mandatory annual reviews.
Just last year, member states had signed off unanimously on a ban that fixed January 2027 as the cut-off for all shipments beyond the EU. That commitment is now unwound. Greece caught other capitals off guard during recent talks, refusing to sign off without a broad exemption to protect its maritime sector and keeping its veto firmly in place until a majority relented.
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Home to the world’s largest merchant fleet, Greece dominates Europe’s LNG carrier market and competes globally with Japan, China and the United States. According to officials, a strict transport embargo would hand market share to foreign rivals, gut the region’s maritime services industry and eliminate jobs without meaningfully draining Moscow’s finances.
Driving the objection was Dynagas, the transport enterprise owned by Greek billionaire George Prokopiou. Eleven vessels have been chartered by the company and its subsidiary to Yamal LNG, Russia’s premier gas installation, seven of them Arctic-resistant icebreakers. The prospect of reopening settled EU law left other governments aghast, and they warned it set a dangerous precedent.
Also defused by the agreement was a politically awkward jump in the Russian oil price cap. Renewed hostilities between the United States and Iran would have triggered a pre-existing formula tied to global markets, automatically lifting the ceiling from $44 to $58 per barrel. Instead, the deal freezes the cap at $44 for the next 12 months.
Greece was not the only member state to soften the text. Restrictions on Russian cod and pollack imports were dropped after Portugal and Germany pushed back, and Bulgaria won the removal of Lukoil founder Vagit Alekperov and Patriarch Kirill, head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, from the blacklist.
Consular liability and administrative burdens cited by France and Italy watered down a plan to bar Russian soldiers from the Schengen Area, leaving only a vague pledge for future implementation. Austria, meanwhile, won a promise that ambassadors would seek relief for Rasperia, a blacklisted investment company, to offset a €2.1 billion loss suffered by Raiffeisen Bank International in Russia, a reversal from last year’s outright dismissal.
The concessions did not empty the package. It blacklists more than 250 individuals and companies tied to wartime propaganda and sanctions evasion, layers on fresh restrictions covering Russian banks, oil-trading platforms, cryptocurrency networks and battlefield metals, and bars more than 600 decrepit shadow fleet vessels from EU ports.
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