Brussels, Kingdom of Belgium (Weltexpress). According to the Reuters news agency, citing diplomatic sources, EU ambassadors have failed to adopt the 18th package of sanctions against the Russian Federation. The Slovak Republic will block the sanctions until its concerns about the exemption for the country from the European Commission’s plan to completely ban Russian gas purchases from 2027 are addressed.
The 18th package of anti-Russian sanctions is also being blocked by the Republic of Malta, which believes that sanctions against Russian oil transporters could harm its interests as a country specialising in maritime transport, according to RTBF television.
Experts and critics also describe the European Union (EU) as a bureaucracy that is being transformed from a confederation of states into a federal state. Some experts and critics see the EU bureaucracy after the Treaty of Lisbon, also known as the EU Basic Treaty, which was signed in Lisbon on 13 December 2007, as a derivative subject of international law similar to the United Nations.
