Hot Air
Austria remains against sanctions that would hit Nord Stream 2 or SWIFT in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine
Servus!
On Monday, Europe’s foreign ministers gathered in Brussels, and at the top of the agenda was the current crisis which has befallen Ukraine. As of writing, the Putin regime has deployed around 100,000 troops to Russia’s western border with Ukraine. Around 20,000 are positioned near the provinces of Donetsk and Lubansk, where separatists supported by Russia have been engaged in a proxy war since 2014. Forces deployed in the north, meanwhile, offer Vladimir Putin the possibility of marching on the Ukrainian capital Kiev, should he choose to take that option.
A recent American intelligence assessment concluded that “Moscow has drawn up plans for a military offensive involving an estimated 175,000 troops”; Secretary of State Antony Blinken took part in Monday’s conference of foreign ministers. That conversation, Austria’s foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg said Monday, was “a strong signal of the transatlantic bond between the United States and the EU. Our analysis of the threat situation is similar and we’re working together on a strong response should things come to an act of Russian military aggression” in Ukraine.
Though part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace—a program to which, it should be pointed out, Russia is also party—Austria is not a full NATO member owing to its official neutrality agreed in 1955 as a condition for ending the postwar military occupation of the country. Whatever happens in Ukraine, Austria will not be part of any Western coordinated military response, whether in the form of direct military confrontation (however unlikely or undesirable that might be) or lethal aid that would enable Ukraine to deter or fend off the Russian threat.
Rather, the subject of Monday’s meeting was possible European sanctions against Russia in the event of any violation of the “sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence” of Ukraine. “Everything is on the table,” Schallenberg claimed Monday, including broad and comprehensive sanctions against Russian economic and financial interests. But everything isn’t on the table. For Austria, sanctions impacting Russian natural gas exports and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline are not an option in spite of evident American opposition to the project. Neither, it would seem, are any sanctions that would take Russia out of the SWIFT system facilitating international financial transactions.
On gas, Austria is as compromised and exposed as many other European countries. Europe is, as Schallenberg himself said in an interview with the Presse am Sonntag last week, “dependent” on Russian natural gas, and energy prices in Austria, as in the rest of Europe, have been on the up for months in part because of the political and military crisis in Russia and Ukraine. Austria is also compromised by the close relationship between its political class and the commanding heights of the Russian economy. Former chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel sits on the board of Lukoil, while ex-chancellor Christian Kern has a place on the board of Russian Railways.
Europe and the United States are, then, perhaps not as united as Schallenberg’s statement would indicate. Yes, the EU has agreed a €1.3 billion package of loans and grants for Ukraine. But while the US has moved to evacuate the family members of diplomatic personnel from Kiev, the EU continues to believe there may be—indeed, there must be—a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Moreover, there might be agreement that sanctions will be necessary should Russia invade Ukraine, though how sweeping and effective those sanctions might be considering the pinched positions of Germany and Austria on gas and SWIFT is another matter entirely.
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