EU leaders wrangle with issue of oil and gas imports from Russia at summit
European Union leaders have laid bare their differences over whether to stop buying oil and gas from Russia, following a show of transatlantic unity in a series of summits with Joe Biden and an impassioned appeal by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for more military aid to defend his country.
In the third summit on a hectic day of diplomacy that began with an emergency meeting of Nato leaders, followed by the G7, EU leaders met the US president to discuss Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“The single most important thing we had to do in the west is be united,” Biden said, arriving at the EU summit, the first time a US president has attended a European Council meeting. Biden said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had been trying to break up Nato “from the beginning” and unity would be crucial in stopping him. “It’s the single most important thing to stop this guy, who in our country we believe has already committed war crimes,” he said.
The EU leaders were due to hear a video address from Zelenskiy, four weeks since the war broke out, when he told them in a conference call that they might not see him alive again.
The European Council meeting was heavy with symbolism, but officials dampened talk of further sanctions. Poland and the Baltic states were leading the charge for tougher measures against Russia, including a ban on Russian ships and road vehicles entering the EU. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said the EU needed to “crush” Russia with sanctions over the war, which he said had turned into a “massacre”. Referring to the Soviet Union, he said Russia was trying “to re-establish the ‘empire of evil’”.
Latvia’s prime minister, Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš, said energy sanctions were a “serious option”
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