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50 Opinion bne December 2018
When will the west lift sanctions on Russia?
COMMENT: Western sanctions against Russia:
decision year in 2019 or 2029?
Gunter Deuber of Raiffeisen Research in Vienna
Ever since sanctions were imposed on Russia following its annexation of the Crimea in 2014 there has been constant speculation on when the US and EU sanctions will be lifted again.
There have been numerous surveys asking if there could be an easing in the upcoming 12 months. From time to time the number of analysts saying it was possible rose as high as believing there was a 40% chance that the EU sanctions at least could be eased in the next year.
Lifting sanctions in the US is clearly going to be more difficult, but there too following the election of US president Donald Trump at the end of 2016 and start of 2017 the polls increased to 50-60 % of respondents saying at that time the USA could relax the sanctions imposed on Russia. But in reality the western sanctions regime remains unaltered and if anything continues to get harsher.
In addition, over the last 2-3 years there have been several "windows of opportunity", in which Russophile countries led relevant international bodies or organisations. There was the OSCE presidencies of Germany and Austria in 2016 and 2017, or the current EU Council presidency of Austria, which have been opportunities to change Europe’s mind on the Russian sanctions, but none of these have brought any change.
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Most recently the new government in Italy has actively been calling for an improvement in EU-Russia relations, but that too has turned out to be a very limited effort, despite comments to the contrary.
Ultimately, all self-interested western politicians have rec- ognised that not much political capital can be gained from the issue of relaxing western sanctions against Russia at the national or international level – especially as long as there is no progress in bringing peace to Eastern Ukraine.
But the noisy rhetoric continues. In the last few months even, some Russophile western "bridge-building" states have empha- sized the high degree of alienation between the west and Russia.
“In reality western sanctions regime remains unaltered and if anything continues to get harsher”
One reason for this is that even states such as Germany and Austria have been affected by Russia’s alleged wiretapping, hacking and espionage activities and as a result the talk of easing sanctions has dropped away again. Germany has also accepted