The European Union has decided to defer new sanctions on Russian officials and pro-Russian separatists by a week in order to give extra space to diplomatic efforts by France and Germany to broker a lasting ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
The EU’s foreign ministers had been expected to rubber-stamp a new blacklist at a meeting today (9 February) in Brussels, but diplomats said that foreign ministers had instead spent two hours discussing whether to defer the new targeted sanctions and for how many days.
Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told the ministers that the request for a deferral came from the …read more
Source: European Voice
