By Kate Abnett and Gabriela Baczynska
STRASBOURG (Reuters) – Western sanctions on Russia are having a real impact and are there to stay, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday, stressing that the European Union’s solidarity with Ukraine would be “unshakeable.”
With Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska the guest of honour as she delivered her annual state of the union speech, von der Leyen was set to unveil proposals to curb the energy price spike that has hit Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Never before has this Parliament debated the State of our Union with war raging on European soil,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where many lawmakers and EU commissioners wore Ukraine’s blue and yellow colours.
“And I stand here with the conviction that with courage and solidarity, Putin will fail and Europe will prevail,” von der Leyen said, adding: “Europe’s solidarity with Ukraine will remain unshakeable.”
Von der Leyen, whose proposals to help European households and companies will include skimming off windfall profits from energy companies and imposing cuts in electricity usage across the bloc, said the bloc would also help rebuild Ukraine.
While some in Europe, pointing at the huge spike in energy prices, have been arguing that the bloc’s sanctions on Russia were hitting the West more, von der Leyen said that “the sanctions are here to stay” and that they were hurting Russia.
“Russia’s financial sector is on life-support”, she said, adding that nearly one thousand international companies have left the country. “The Russian military is taking chips from dishwashers and refrigerators to fix their military hardware, because they ran out of semiconductors. Russia’s industry is in tatters.”
At a time when Ukraine is working on securing territory it has reclaimed from occupying Russian forces in a swift counter-offensive, von der Leyen said this was not the time for the bloc to soften its stance.
“This is the time for us to show resolve, not appeasement,” she said. “We are in it for the long haul.”
She said Europe had diversified away from Russian energy, but Moscow was still “actively manipulating” the market and gas prices have risen by more than 10 times compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Making ends meet is becoming a source of anxiety for millions of businesses and households,” she said.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Gabriela Baczynska, Marine Strauss, Jan Strupczewski; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by John Chalmers)
