On EU actions against the Russian shadow fleets and ensuring a full enforcement of sanctions against Russia

B100164/2024

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

(2024/2885(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Ukraine and Russia, in particular that of 17 July 2024 on the need for the EU’s continuous support for Ukraine,

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

A. whereas Russia has been carrying out an illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine since 24 February 2022, continuing what it started in 2014 when it annexed Crimea and subsequently occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions;

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 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 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 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 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 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 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;

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;

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;

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;

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;

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;

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;

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;

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;

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;

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.