What changed

B100162/2024

B100164/2024

European Parliament resolution on EU actions against the Russian shadow fleets and ensuring a full enforcement of sanctions against Russia

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on RussiaUkraine and Ukraine,Russia, in particular sincethat theof escalation17 ofJuly Russia’s2024 waron ofthe aggressionneed againstfor Ukrainethe inEU’s Februarycontinuous 2022,support for Ukraine,

– having regard to the Charter of the United Nations,

– having regard to the 14 consecutive packages of sanctions against Russia adopted by the EU since February 2022,

– having regard to the report of its Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of 7 July 2023 on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of Union restrictive measures,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas on 24Russia Februaryhas 2022,been Russiacarrying launchedout aan full-scale,illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine; whereas Russia had previously illegally annexed Crimea and the city of Sevastopol and invaded eastern Ukraine; whereasUkraine since its24 outset,February the2022, EUcontinuing haswhat stronglyit condemnedstarted Russia’sin war2014 ofwhen aggressionit againstannexed UkraineCrimea and has called on Russia to putsubsequently anoccupied endparts toof thesethe aggressionsDonetsk and respect Ukraine’s territorialLuhansk integrity;regions;

B. whereas Russia is one of the world’s top oil producers; whereas between February 2022 and June 2024, Russia earned approximately EUR 475 billion in revenue from oil exports; whereas in 2023, around one third of Russia’s total tax revenue came from the sale of oil and gas; whereas Russia is heavily dependent on sales of oil in terms of export earnings and budget revenues; whereas Russia uses these revenues to finance its war of aggression against Ukraine; whereas cutting oil export volumes would create challenges for Russia’s external accounts and its budget, and in turn its ability to finance its war against Ukraine;

B. whereas since February 2022, the EU has adopted 14 packages of sanctions aimed at undermining Russia’s ability to wage its illegal war of aggression;

C. whereas since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the EU has imposed massive and unprecedented sanctions against Russia; whereas in June 2022, the Council adopted a sixth package of sanctions, which, among other things, prohibits the purchase, import and transfer of seaborne crude oil and certain petroleum products from Russia to the EU; whereas the restrictions apply as of 5 December 2022 for crude oil and as of 5 February 2023 for other refined petroleum products; whereas the EU sanctions packages have included exemptions allowing some Member States to continue importing Russian seaborne crude oil and pipeline gas up until now;

C. whereas the Member States, together with the G7+ Price Cap Coalition, have introduced price caps on seaborne crude oil, petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals that originate in or are exported from Russia; whereas Russia is sidestepping Western sanctions by deploying a fleet of around 600 shadow ships that transport crude oil priced above the price cap;

D. whereas the EU and the other members of the G7+ Price Cap Coalition have decided on a price cap of 60 USD per barrel on their tankers and on the ones they insure which are used to move Russian oil; whereas the economic incentive for Russia to supply oil to the market remains intact even at much lower prices and with sanctions in place;

D. whereas these ageing ships, with an average age of 17 years, increase the risk of environmental disasters in European and other territorial waters and exclusive economic zones; whereas since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, shadow ships have been involved in 50 incidents in various geographical areas; whereas the opaque ownership and questionable insurance coverage of these ships make it nearly impossible to enforce accountability in the event of an oil spill or other major incident; whereas, therefore, the cost of addressing the fallout from ecological accidents will likely fall on national governments and, by extension, their taxpayers; whereas the clean-up costs for an oil spill involving a typical shadow ship are reported to range from USD 859 million to USD 1.6 billion; whereas spills can harm marine life, render consumer products, such as shellfish, toxic, and prevent fish reproduction, and the chemicals involved can spread further contamination;

E. whereas, in response, Russia has spent an estimated EUR 9 billion on building up its so-called shadow fleet; whereas Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ is composed of older tankers with opaque ownership, posing an environmental hazard as there is a very high risk of oil spills alongside other mechanical problems that might lead to the sinking of an entire ship; whereas these ships often sail without industry standard insurance, frequently changing names and flag registrations, enabling them to sell a significant portion of their oil above the price cap and undermining the ability of governments to hold them liable for the clean-up in the event of oil spills;

E. whereas the intentional overboard discharge of waste oil slops is illegal under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), an international treaty that aims to curb shipping pollution; whereas Russia is a signatory of MARPOL; whereas there is evidence of violations of MARPOL; whereas sanctioning individual ships has proved effective, as the ships that have already been blacklisted saw their ability to trade oil decrease after they were penalised;

F. whereas the ‘shadow fleet’ used by Russia as a workaround has significantly reduced the leverage of the sanctions regime and has allowed Russia to further use these revenues to finance its war of aggression against Ukraine; whereas almost two years since this oil price cap was enacted, nearly 70 % of the Kremlin’s oil is being transported on ‘shadow tankers’ that are evading these restrictions; whereas Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ is estimated at around 600 tankers; whereas before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, 75 % of the ships transporting Russian crude oil were operated by Western companies; whereas as of April 2024, this number has dropped to 29 %; whereas, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, the companies that manage the ‘shadow tankers’ are predominantly registered in Russia, the United Arab Emirates, China, Azerbaijan, India, the Seychelles, Türkiye, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritius and Viet Nam;

F. whereas the International Convention Relating to Intervention on the High Seas in Cases of Oil Pollution Casualties allows countries ‘to prevent, mitigate or eliminate grave and imminent danger to their coastline or related interests from pollution or threat of pollution of the sea by oil, following upon a maritime casualty or acts related to such a casualty’;

G. whereas, should accidents occur, oil spills from ‘shadow fleet’ vessels can result in clean-up costs amounting to billions of euro for coastal countries and their taxpayers, as the owners of these vessels are largely untraceable; whereas such spills pose significant threats to water quality and local wildlife, harming marine ecosystems, contaminating consumer products such as shellfish and disrupting fish reproduction;

G. whereas the United States has adopted several executive orders as trade policy tools to respond to market effects that are connected with sanctions regimes and undermine fair competition; whereas such measures are aimed, among other things, at limiting the scope for unfair practices that are indirectly enabled by sanctions regimes; whereas the EU should consider adopting similar tools to uphold fair competition within the EU market and prevent any undue market advantages arising indirectly from sanctions regimes;

H. whereas the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the EU have tightened control over maritime safety following the Erika (1999) and Prestige (2002) disasters off European coasts; whereas Directive 2009/20/EC on the insurance of shipowners for maritime claims has been in place since 2009, ensuring that all ships flying the flag of an EU Member State have insurance and carry insurance certificates; whereas one of the objectives of Directive 2009/20/EC was the elimination of substandard ships;

H. whereas the EU’s 14th sanctions package targets 27 ships that are contributing to Russia’s warfare against Ukraine, listing them with their International Maritime Organization (IMO) numbers; whereas these ships are now subject to a port access ban and a ban on the provision of services in the EU; whereas IMO numbers are permanently assigned to ships for their entire lifespan and are unaffected by changes in ownership, registration country, or name; whereas records linked to the IMO number provide an independent audit trail for each vessel;

I. whereas recent reports from the Swedish Navy have highlighted the security risks linked to the activities of the ‘shadow fleet’ and its possible use in hybrid operations against European countries;

1. Stresses that the impact of existing sanctions and of financial and military support to Ukraine will continue to be undermined as long as the EU allows Russian fossil fuels to be imported; calls for the EU and the Member States to introduce a full ban on re-exported Russian refined oil products;

J. whereas the Council first adopted measures to address circumvention risks posed by the ‘shadow fleet’ in the 11th and 12th sanctions packages; whereas in its 14th package of sanctions on Russian oil, adopted in June 2024, the Council introduced a new measure targeting specific vessels contributing to Russia’s war against Ukraine, which are subject to a port access ban and a ban on the provision of services; whereas so far, the EU has placed only 27 vessels on this list, including tankers transporting Russian oil and engaging in dangerous and illegal shipping practices; whereas to date, the act of designating ‘shadow fleet’ vessels has had the biggest impact on ‘shadow fleet’ operations;

2. Calls on the G7 countries to more effectively enforce the price cap imposed on Russian seaborne oil and to crack down on the loopholes used by Russia to repackage and sell its oil at market prices; calls for the EU and its Member States to exercise strict control over Russia’s shadow fleets, which, in addition to violating EU and G7 sanctions, pose an immense ecological threat to the ecosystem as a result of their technical deficiencies and frequent breakdowns;

K. whereas removing a vessel from commercial operations via sanctions poses a major risk for any operator and a substantial financial loss; whereas including more tankers on the sanctions list could therefore disincentivise engineering, trading and insurance service providers from cooperating with these individual tankers;

3. Calls for the strict implementation of IMO Assembly Resolution A.1192(33), which was adopted in December 2023 to combat harmful maritime operations, notably the obligation for vessels to report all ship-to-ship transfers to their flag states and enhanced inspections, at ports, of suspicious ships known to have switched off their vessel-tracking systems;

L. whereas on 17 October 2024, the UK Government imposed sanctions against 18 Russian oil tankers and 4 liquefied natural gas tankers, which are estimated to have transported fossil fuels amounting to USD 4.9 billion in the last year alone;

4. Calls for the Member States, together with transatlantic allies and other like-minded partners, to take bold and coordinated action, including through the IMO, to target malign activities by Russian shadow fleets, which jeopardise the environment and maritime safety on EU coastlines and pose espionage and hybrid threats; urges coastal Member States to make use of all their rights and obligations, as enshrined in international law, to challenge shadow fleet vessels suspected to have basic safety standards and dubious insurance, so as to enhance the security of European waters;

M. whereas despite banning imports of oil products refined in Russia, there is no ban on imports from third-country refineries that process Russian crude oil; whereas the ‘shadow fleet’ delivers Russian crude oil to third-country refineries; whereas EU and G7 members continue to import oil products derived from Russian oil, for example from refineries in Türkiye, and the volume of imports is in fact on a significant upwards trajectory; whereas the labelling of ‘blended’ fuels as non-Russian generated up to EUR 3 billion in earnings for the Russian state budget from three ports alone in the year following the EU ban on Russian fuels in February 2023;

5. Calls for the Member States to ensure the EU’s economic security by ending their dependency on Russian energy, while taking further coordinated action to disrupt Russia’s revenue from its energy trading; calls for the EU and its Member States to ban the import of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) and nuclear products, and urges the EU Member States, in line with the ‘stand still, phase out’ approach, not to conclude any new agreements with Rosatom, its leadership or its subsidiaries; underlines that, given the importance of strengthening EU nuclear energy supply chains, including via the deployment of small modular reactors, it is essential to immediately mitigate any new dependencies on Russia and thus ensure the use of non-Russian nuclear fuels;

N. whereas a significant portion of Russian oil is transported through busy international shipping routes, including the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Danish Straits, the Viro Strait, the English Channel, the North Sea and the Aegean Sea; whereas Russia ships the overwhelming majority of its oil from ports in the Baltic and Black Seas;

6. Calls for countries with international straits to require ships to demonstrate proof of protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance and adherence to minimum safety standards, as this would help to regulate shadow fleet operations and drive up costs for non-compliant vessels;

O. whereas the Russian ‘shadow tankers’ regularly conduct ship-to-ship transfers of Russian crude oil and oil products in territorial waters, including in the Mediterranean Sea; whereas in these operations, they transfer and blend Russian oil between vessels without docking at any port; whereas the proximity of these operations to the coast poses a high risk of environmental damage; whereas the coastal countries of Europe would be particularly affected;

7. Calls for a full embargo on Russian LNG and for sanctions against Gazprom and Russian oil companies; calls for the EU to impose the requirement that Arc-7 ice-class vessels exporting Russian LNG be included on the sanctions lists of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control and of the EU, denying them access to ports or Western maritime services; calls for the EU and its Member States to add to the sanctions list more individual ships used by Russia to circumvent sanctions on its oil and gas exports, along with the IMO numbers of these ships;

P. whereas since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, an increasing number of tanker routes have shifted towards the East, specifically towards China and India; whereas Russia became China’s top crude oil supplier in 2023, with a 35 % volume export increase compared to 2021;

8. Condemns the behaviour of the states, legal service providers, other entities and individuals that help Russia to avoid the effects of EU sanctions; recalls that the violation of the sanctions is a crime at EU level, and has a severe impact on EU financial interests; calls for the Member States and the EU institutions to step up their efforts to limit the evasion and circumvention of EU sanctions against Russia, as evasion and circumvention seriously undermine the effectiveness of EU sanctions and obstruct international efforts to end the war;

Q. whereas those transporting the oil and managing the ‘shadow fleet’ do not operate in a vacuum; whereas their activities are also tied, for instance, to the financial transactions behind them; whereas the activities of the ‘shadow fleet’ are also linked to financial transactions with entities that may be subject to financial sanctions; whereas compliance with the sanctions regime should be analysed from a holistic perspective to avoid circumvention;

9. Calls on the Commission to examine the adoption of trade policy tools similar to those employed by the United States, focusing on actors that gain market advantages because of sanctions regimes and may operate unfairly within the EU market as a result;

R. whereas Directive (EU) 2024/1226 established minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and penalties in the area of violations of Union restrictive measures;

10. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the President, Government and Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Russian Government and the United Nations.

S. whereas ship operators have been willing to flout the sanctions by registering their vessels in countries that are not part of the price cap agreement; whereas Russia uses third-country intermediaries, organisations or individuals to purchase some ‘shadow fleet’ tankers;

1. Reiterates Parliament’s unequivocal support for the EU sanctions regime; is convinced that these sanctions help weaken the capacity of the Russian regime to pursue its aggression against Ukraine; reminds the global community of the EU’s unwavering resolve to pursue the results intended by its sanctions regime: to completely deplete the Russian Federation’s war chest and bring victory to Ukraine;

2. Calls for more targeted international sanctions on the ‘shadow fleet’ in the next sanctions package against Russia, such as designating all possible individual ‘shadow fleet’ vessels, as well as their owners, operators, managers, accounts, etc.; calls for an immediate ban on the use of Western vessels in the transport of Russian oil and, in this context, calls for the implementation of a full embargo on Russian oil and crude oil; calls for the dangers posed by the ‘shadow fleet’ to be raised with the governments of the countries where the companies managing the ‘shadow tankers’ are based, and calls for their cooperation in abolishing these activities; immediately calls for the sale of tankers to countries facilitating trade with Russia to be banned; condemns all countries, including Greece, Cyprus and the United Kingdom, that are enabling and facilitating such sales;

3. Urgently calls for sanctions to be placed on Russian liquefied natural gas; calls for such sanctions to immediately include price caps and transport embargoes; emphasises the critical importance of sanctions covering the sale of any vessels where there is suspicion that they would be used in the ‘shadow fleet’;

4. Calls for sanctions to be placed on any vessels sailing in EU waters without known insurance; highly commends, in this regard, the recent sanctions imposed by the UK Government against Russian oil tankers and four liquefied natural gas tankers; calls for enhanced EU-wide measures to ensure stricter enforcement and the expansion of sanctions, including the immediate inspection and regulation of vessels operating in EU waters; emphasises that the US Office of Foreign Assets Control follows up on sanctions and their enforcement; strongly calls for the EU to set up a corresponding agency with a similar mandate to ensure compliance with EU sanctions;

5. Calls on the Commission to take action, under the framework of the EU’s cooperation with the IMO, to prevent and limit the activities of the ‘shadow fleet’; calls on the Commission to take into consideration the environmental and security aspects of the Russian ‘shadow fleet’ in the territorial waters of EU Member States; welcomes the fact that eight out of nine countries bordering the Baltic Sea are now NATO members, with Russia as the only exception; underlines the importance of NATO’s presence for the overall security of the region; calls for the EU and its Member States to explore mechanisms and measures to restrict Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels from accessing the territorial waters of EU Member States; calls, in this regard, for ‘shadow fleet’ vessels to be prohibited from entering EU territorial waters; encourages the EU Member States to explore ways to restrict passage through important waterways, such as the Öresund Strait, and to cooperate closely with the United Kingdom on measures to prohibit Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels from accessing the English Channel; stresses that restricting access to the English Channel would mean increased transport times for said vessels, leading to decreased revenues for the Russian state; emphasises that the European Maritime Safety Agency must be used to its full potential in order to support Member States in identifying ships falling under sanctions and monitoring the movement of suspicious ships;

6. Encourages the Commission and the Member States to use data from Sentinel satellite imagery to monitor and identify ‘shadow fleet’ vessels sailing in EU waters, in violation of EU directives and the MARPOL Convention, and to promptly investigate when risks to coastal areas and marine ecosystems arise;

7. Denounces the risks these unsafe and uninsured Russian vessels pose to our European coastal Member States and marine ecosystems; calls on the Commission to closely monitor the implementation of Directive 2009/20/EC on the insurance of shipowners for maritime claims, so as to prevent uninsured vessels from sailing through EU waters; stresses the need for strengthened enforcement mechanisms, such as enabling EU Member States to prevent uninsured or non-compliant vessels from docking at EU ports or using EU waters for refuelling or other services, as they should meet EU environmental standards, and increasing the monitoring of such vessels, including by drones; calls on the Member States to take action to ensure that non-compliant vessels, especially old tankers that do not meet international environmental and safety standards due to age and bad condition, are not made available on the market;

8. Urges the European External Action Service and the EU Sanctions Envoy to reach out to countries whose presence in EU waters has significantly increased since the imposition of the oil price cap, as well as to countries that provide flags to the ships listed in the 14th sanctions package and to countries involved in suspicious maritime practices in the context of other sanctions regimes; notes that the EU delegations and the Member States represented in these countries should approach the host governments to inform them about the basis of the listings and the consequences of a potential listing, highlight the risks and adverse environmental impact of irregular and high-risk shipping practices and remind them of the flag states’ responsibilities (such as IMO Resolution A.1192(33) and the revised IMO guidelines for accepting insurance companies and certificates);

9. Notes that the flag states aiding the Russian ‘shadow fleet’ are thereby also helping the Russian war effort; emphasises that if classical diplomatic efforts fail, the Commission should seriously reassess its cooperation, including development cooperation, the ‘Everything but Arms’ scheme, etc., with these non-EU countries that are working against EU foreign policy;

10. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure sufficient environmental disaster preparedness, especially for large oil spills, and to ensure that Member State authorities cooperate closely, both together and with the European Maritime Safety Agency, to deal with large-scale, cross-border pollution disasters, including by continuing to coordinate inventories of equipment needed for clean-ups, such as booms, skimmers and modified boats; calls on the Commission to develop a crisis management and preparedness strategy to quickly deal with large-scale, cross-border pollution or environmental disasters;

11. Calls on the Commission to ensure the effective implementation and enforcement of Directive 2009/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2005/35/EC on ship-source pollution and on the introduction of penalties for infringements;

12. Calls for the EU and its Member States to take a more holistic view of the ‘shadow fleet’ operations and to prevent any trade in oil and its products involving the ‘shadow fleet’; calls for the EU and its Member States to identify and sanction third-country facilities that blend or mask Russian-origin oil and oil products, as well as organisations, banks and insurance companies, among other entities, that enable the operations of Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’;

13. Highlights the need for cooperation with trading partners, continued monitoring and a decidedly committed enforcement of restrictive measures at international level; calls for the EU and its Member States to deploy all available resources to this effect;

14. Strongly recommends that the EU and its G7 partners significantly expand the sanctions list to include additional vessels that circumvent their price caps and operate without respecting international standards; calls for the EU and partner countries to diligently verify the adequacy of insurance covering oil spills when applying the sanctions framework, for instance when providing or renewing registrations; calls for enhanced due diligence requirements for obtaining insurance for vessels, such as proof of sales contracts compliant with the price cap or reliable, verified bank statements, etc.;

15. Welcomes the updated advisory by the Price Cap Coalition for both government and private sector actors involved in the global maritime industry, providing stakeholders with new recommendations on meeting international obligations, enhancing due diligence around tanker sales, avoiding interactions with sanctioned counterparties and raising internal awareness;

16. Calls on the Member States to promptly transpose and implement Directive (EU) 2024/1226 on the definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of Union restrictive measures and to ensure adequate financial, technical and human resources in place to properly enforce EU restrictive measures;

17. Calls for the EU and its G7 partners to deploy all necessary resources to identify third-country refineries using Russian crude oil and sometimes masking its origin, and to cease the import of these oil products; calls for the EU, its Member States and its G7 partners to enhance their cooperation with trading partners to more swiftly and effectively identify buyers of Russian oil and to cease purchasing oil products from them; calls for these designated facilities to be included on the targeted sanctions list;

18. Calls for ship-to-ship transfers of Russian crude oil and oil products in EU territorial waters to be banned; requests that the necessary resources to identify and hinder these transfer operations be deployed, including by prohibiting the anchoring and fuelling of all such ships in EU waters;

19. Calls on the Member States to impose stricter penalties for non-compliance with sanctions to further increase risks for actors involved in ‘shadow fleet’ operations;

20. Reiterates its call to further reduce the dependence of the remaining Member States on Russian oil and gas, as this leads to exemptions from EU sanctions against Russia and finances Russia’s war machine against Ukraine;

21. Calls for the EU and its Member States to ban the import of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) and nuclear products, and urges the Member States not to conclude any new agreements with Rosatom, or its leadership and subsidiaries; underlines that, given the importance of strengthening EU nuclear energy supply chains, including via the deployment of small modular reactors, it is essential to immediately mitigate any new dependencies on Russia and thus ensure the use of non-Russian nuclear fuels;

22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President, Government and Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the International Maritime Organization and the Russian authorities.