The European Commission has removed a proposal to fully phase out Russian oil imports from its near-term agenda, delaying a key element of its RePowerEU strategy aimed at ending reliance on Moscow’s energy supplies.

As part of the EU’s plan to phase out Russian imports of oil and gas completely, the first bans were due to come into effect in April before oil and gas imports are totally ended by the start of next year. But thanks to supply disruptions caused by the war in the Middle East those bans have been suspended. Progress on passing the twentieth sanctions package has also been suspended.

On April 15 the first ban on oil import contracts was supposed to come into effect, but that plan has been cancelled for at least the next month, according to officials familiar with the matter.

“The announcement of the EC's RePowerEU proposal to fully stop Russian oil imports into the EU by the end of 2027, originally scheduled for April 15, has been dropped from the European Commission's agenda for next month,” UBN reports, citing EU officials.

The postponement leaves uncertain the timeline for one of the EU’s most politically sensitive energy measures since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While the bloc has already moved to curb seaborne imports of Russian crude and refined products, Hungary and Slovakia continue to rely on pipeline supplies and have used their veto power to halt the passage of the next sanctions package, the release of the €90bn EU loan and are threatening to block Ukraine’s EU accession bid.

RePowerEU, launched in 2022, set out a roadmap to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels through a combination of diversification, energy savings and accelerated deployment of renewables.

The bloc has made significant progress in cutting gas imports from Russia, replacing much of the supply with LNG from the US and other partners. However, oil has proven more difficult to eliminate entirely, reflecting differences in infrastructure and supply chains across member states, particularly in central and eastern Europe.

Brussels has not yet provided a revised date for the proposal’s publication, leaving open questions about how quickly the EU can meet its longer-term objective of ending imports of Russian fossil fuels as it faces its own mushrooming gas crisis this year. LNG tankers on their way to Europe have reportedly been turning around and headed to Asia where governments are willing to pay higher prices in a market where supplies have fallen dramatically after Qatari LNG was taken off the market by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Sanctions weakening

The delay in implementing the EU's tough new sanctions on Russian oil and gas comes in the context of the White House's decision to ease sanctions on Russia.

Due to the chaos on the market and in a desperate effort to increase the supplies, the White House recently issued a 30-day waiver for India to allow it to buy floating Russian oil.

Following that earlier this week the US Treasury Department also lifted sanctions on buying Iranian oil for a month to increase supplies to the market further. Both China and India have entered into talks about the possibility of buying some of this oil, also stored on tankers at sea.

The Treasury Department said that there was a total of 140,000 barrels of Iranian oil available, however subsequent reports pointed out that 100,000 of those barrels have already been sold to China and were not available, leaving only 40,000 barrels available which will have little impact on oil prices.

On the question of easing sanctions on Russian oil exports, the European Commission is adamant that sanctions should not only remain in place but should be toughened, irrespective of the increase in prices.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this month that returning to Russian energy would be "a strategic ​blunder" and make Europe more vulnerable.

But as push comes to shove, MEPs are also worried about the rising cost of energy and associated inflation shock that will bring. The resistance to passing the twentieth sanctions package is not only from Hungary and Slovakia, but more widespread.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever recently added his voice to the growing disunity in the EU saying that sanctions on Russia should be lifted and commodity imports resumed.

“When I say this to other members of the EU, many agree with me in private, but will not say so in public,” De Wever said in a recent interview.