EU sanctions on Russia will have increasing effect, Dublin conference told

The EU’s sanctions on Russia are making it more difficult for Vladimir Putin to finance his “war machine”, European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness has told a conference in Dublin on the topic of the Single Market.

Ms McGuinness, who has responsibility for the EU’s sanctions regime, said the eight packages of “severe sanctions” introduced to date were having “a big impact” on Russia.

Russia had been very strong on spreading disinformation, but the impact of the sanctions was visible and would grow over time, she said.

Russia’s economy was expected to contract by 3 per cent this year and 2 per cent next year, and the contraction “will be made even worse if we put more barriers in the way of Russia’s ability to export energy [products]”.

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The Single Market provides the European Union with a great deal of power and influence, and this could be seen in the case of the sanctions’ regime, she added.

[ Why are energy bills not falling even as gas prices plummet on world markets? ]

Ms McGuinness, the Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability, and Capital Markets Union, said she believed the public understood the difficulties in the energy market were the result of Mr Putin trying to “blackmail” Europe.

The Russian regime was seeking, through its recent escalations in the war, to make Ukraine “uninhabitable” and to drive more people from the country, she said.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin, in opening the conference, said Ireland’s vote 50 years ago to join the EU had led to the transformation of Irish society and to peace.

The vote had taken place in the worst year of the Troubles, he noted, when more than 500 men women and children were killed.

Far from diminishing Irish sovereignty, joining the EU had unequivocally strengthened it and given Ireland a reach and influence it would not otherwise enjoy, he told the conference.

Describing Russia as a “rogue state”, he said it had engaged in wanton destruction and the mass killing of civilians in Ukraine, and, more recently, the targeting of nuclear facilities and civilian infrastructure, in a “cruel and reckless attempt, if it can’t win [the war], simply to make Ukraine uninhabitable”.

[ Ireland joins EU’s hawks to propose sweeping sanctions on Russia ]

Asked how the ordinary public could be encouraged to better appreciate the benefits of the Single Market, Ms McGuinness said Ireland only really “got” what the Single Market was when Brexit had happened and the United Kingdom was outside of the Single Market. “Because we took it for granted.”

As well as being a “wake-up call” in relation to the Single Market, Brexit also showed it really mattered to be part of something, and that it really mattered when you were out.

The European project was a political construct, and the very basic construct, “that you are better together”, she added. One of the most important things the EU project had delivered, she said, was freedom, which could be taken for granted until you looked at other parts of the world where it did not exist.

The EU was examining supply chains, but this was not about the Union “closing in on itself”. Rather it was about not being vulnerable to another country’s decisions. The blackmailing of Europe by Russia using energy supply has been “appalling”, she said.

The conference was organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs as part of a series marking 50 years of EU membership.