EU delays April 15 proposal to permanently ban Russian oil imports

BRUSSELS, March 24 - The European Commission will no longer submit a legal proposal to permanently ban Russian oil imports over Moscow's war in Ukraine on April 15 as previously planned, an updated EU legislative agenda showed on Tuesday. Read more at straitstimes.com.

BRUSSELS, March 24 - The European Commission will no longer submit a legal proposal to permanently ban Russian oil imports over Moscow's war in Ukraine on April 15 as previously planned, an updated EU legislative agenda showed on Tuesday.

An EU official, however, told Reuters the proposal had not been cancelled and would still be published though no longer by the mid-April date due to "current geopolitical developments".

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history, according to the International Energy Agency, sending global crude prices soaring.

The proposal would fix into law a full phase-out of Russian oil imports by no later than end-2027. The European Union has already legislated a phase-out by late 2027 of gas imports from Russia.

PROPOSAL WOULD KEEP BAN IN PLACE IF RUSSIA SANCTIONS LIFTED

The measure would have little immediate impact on physical supplies, since the EU was importing just 1% of its oil from Russia by the final quarter of 2025, having slashed imports since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.