It is a complex project: In order to reduce Russia’s income from the sale of oil, the G7 countries want to insert a price cap. In order for this to work, however, all customers would have to adhere to it. This should be made possible via a detour.
The G7 countries have agreed to work out a price cap for Russian oil. The summit at Schloss Elmau will instruct the responsible ministers “to make urgent efforts to develop an upper price limit for oil in consultation with third countries and the private sector,” said a US government representative. The aim of the measure is to deprive Moscow of income that finances the war in Ukraine.
Despite all Western sanctions since the attack on Ukraine, Russia continues to make enormous sums of money from the sale of fossil fuels. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had therefore proposed the introduction of a price cap in order to depress revenues from Russian oil. However, the implementation of the step is considered to be extremely difficult and was met with reservations from France, among others, at the G7 summit.
The price cap would actually only work if all major buyer countries outside of the G7 participated. In particular, large countries such as China or India, which despite the war maintain close economic ties with Russia, should be brought on board.
It is therefore also being discussed whether the price cap can be enforced with the help of certain services related to Russian oil. These include, for example, insurance and oil transport by ship. Such services would be banned by the participating countries. There would only be an exception if the Russian oil was sold cheap enough in the specific case. This could also make it more difficult for Russia to transport its oil to other buyer countries, which would generally pay more.
In addition, according to information from EU circles, the G7 countries want to work towards sanctioning the export of gold from Russia. This is intended to tighten the measures against the government in Moscow because of the war of aggression in Ukraine, it was said on the sidelines of the summit at Schloss Elmau. The USA, Great Britain, Canada and Japan in particular supported the export ban on Russian gold at the meeting. The EU states of Germany, France and Italy, on the other hand, are still reluctant because sanctions have to be decided unanimously in the group of 27 member states of the European Union.
