Good morning from Brussels. Mared Gwyn here with all the insights to start your day.
We start today with a sanctions update: Brussels is eagerly anticipating the European Commission’s proposal for a new package of economic sanctions against Russia, which is most likely to be presented sometime today, our in-house sanctions connoisseur Jorge Liboreiro writes in to report.
The package, number 21st since February 2022, is expected to focus on the price cap on Russian oil, currently set at $44 per barrel. According to EU rules, the cap must be periodically adjusted to remain 15% below the average market price for Russian crude. Since the price of Urals crude has surged in reaction to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the next revision, pencilled for 15 July, should be upward rather than downward.
Of course, nobody in Brussels wants to provide Moscow with any relief at a time when drones and missiles fall on Ukrainian cities. So the Commission is expected to either delay the revision or propose a fixed figure. The goat, at any rate, is to lock it in. As we previously reported, hopes for a full ban on maritime services for Russian oil tankers have all but vanished, shifting the focus back to the cap (which the ban was supposed to terminate).
The 21st package is set to continue efforts to crack down on the “shadow fleet”, close loopholes and blacklist entities that help Moscow evade sanctions.
Keep an eye out also for alumina, the white powder that has plunged Ireland into a PR nightmare just weeks before it’s scheduled to take the reins of the EU Council presidency. The EU’s Foreign Policy chief Kaja Kallas is due in Dublin later today for talks with her counterpart Helen McEntee, where Aughinish Alumina, the company at the heart of the controversy, will be discussed. Jorge breaks down the scandal.
When it comes to individuals, the big question is whether Brussels will seize the moment to go after Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia's Orthodox Church. Hungary, which protected Kirill for the past four years, has signalled its readiness under the new government.
The Commission hopes the new round of sanctions will be approved by 15 July to avoid the automatic review of the price cap. There is reason to believe the deadline will be met: Russia’s decision to ramp up large-scale, deadly attacks against Ukrainian cities has strengthened the collective determination to squeeze the war machine. European allies are awaiting an opening to force Vladimir Putin back to the negotiating table.
Taliban backlash: Forty-seven Members of the European Parliament representing five political groups asked Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Prévot, to refuse to grant Belgian visas to representatives of the Taliban regime, who are set to meet the European Commission’s officials for talks in Brussels this month, my colleague Vincenzo Genovese reports.
In a letter, seen by Euronews, the MEPs express concern about negotiating with a regime responsible for massive violations of freedoms and human rights, claiming that allowing the Taliban to travel to Belgium could be perceived as a form of political recognition, incompatible with the EU institutions’ positions.
“Allowing Taliban representatives to travel to Belgium is a form of recognition that is incompatible with EU values,” Saskia Bricmont from the Greens/EFA group wrote on social media. | 
