The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) will adopt a prohibition on restarting oil imports from Russia, according to the Financial Times. The “highly symbolic” ban falls well short of the total export embargo proposed by Washington.
President Joe Biden will meet with other leaders of G7 nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US and the European Union – this weekend in Japan. In the run-up to the summit, American officials have lobbied the bloc to agree to an embargo on Russia.
A draft of the statement that will be signed at the summit adopts only a “highly symbolic” ban on resuming imports of Russian oil from sources the Kremlin shut down, FT reported, with one official telling the outlet the move was meant “to make sure that partners don’t change their mind in a hypothetical future.”
While Washington sought a total ban on exports to Russia by the G7, FT reported two weeks ago that Japan and the EU viewed the embargo as “simply not do-able.”
Separately, a top German official recently dismissed the American proposal. “The sometimes-discussed approach of ‘we ban everything first and allow exceptions’ will not work in our view,” the unnamed official said. “We want to be very, very precise and we want to avoid unintended side effects.”
