Austria blocks 12th EU sanctions package due to Raiffeisen Bank being on list of war sponsors

EU ambassadors have so far failed to reach an agreement on the 12th package of EU sanctions against Russia, this time because of Austria’s position.

Source: Rikard Jozwiak, the Europe editor for Radio Liberty, on his Twitter account (X), as cited by European Pravda

Details: As he said, Austria’s dissatisfaction is caused by the fact that Ukraine has included the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International in the list of international war sponsors.

Quote: “EU ambassadors have still not agreed on the 12th sanctions package on Russia. Now Austria is complaining that Raiffeisen bank is on the Ukrainian NGO blacklist,” the journalist wrote.

Raiffeisen is one of the few European banks that continue to operate in Russia, and the bank has benefited by 200% from the sanctions that have led to the withdrawal of its competitors from the Russian market.

Today, Raiffeisen is one of the most important financial channels for Russian businesses to conduct transactions in dollars and euros. As a result, the bank makes huge profits, which it then uses to finance the budget of Russia through its taxes.

It should be noted that Austria’s neighbour Hungary has been blocking the allocation of €500 million from the European Peace Fund, which is used to finance aid for Ukraine, for months because the Ukrainian NACP has included Hungary’s largest bank, OTP Bank, in the list of war sponsors.

In early October, Ukraine removed OTP Bank from the list, meeting one of Budapest’s key demands.

However, Hungary claims that Ukraine has not provided any guarantees that the situation with OTP Bank or any other Hungarian company will never happen again, so it continues to maintain its veto.

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