David Gannon | Afp | Getty Images French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Saturday that efforts by G-7 countries to impose a price ceiling on Russian oil would require a commitment from the wider international community to be successful. The G-7 economic powers announced on Friday that they had agreed on a plan to impose a fixed price on Russian oil. The initiative is the latest attempt to put economic pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. But as well as reducing Russia’s oil revenue – a key source of funding for President Vladimir Putin’s war – Le Maire said the policy should be implemented as a “global measure against war”. “You need an approach because we don’t want this measure to be just a Western measure,” Le Maire told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy. “It should not be a Western measure against Russia, it should be a global measure against war,” he added. The G-7 — which is made up of the US, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Japan — has yet to finalize how the price cap will be implemented, a process Le Maire acknowledged that it will be “quite difficult”. However, it is expected to be ready before early December, when EU sanctions on seaborne imports of Russian crude kick in. “We know we need the unity of all 27 member states if you want to get the green light to introduce this cap,” he said, referring to the bloc of EU nations, an unregistered member of the G-7. More than that, however, Le Maire said the policy would require the involvement of other major global economies. It follows comments by Kadri Simson, the EU’s energy chief, who urged the participation of China and India, which have increased their purchases of Russian oil this year, benefiting from falling interest rates. “If we want to be effective in these sanctions, we have to reduce the revenue that Russia earns from oil and gas sales,” Lemaire said.
Europe “third world superpower”
Russia has previously said it will not sell oil to countries that impose a price cap. And after the G-7 announcement on Friday, Russian state energy giant Gazprom said it would not restart natural gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline due to technical problems. It came after gas supplies had already been disrupted last week due to a planned “maintenance outage” expected to last until September 3. Paolo Gentiloni, the EU finance commissioner, said on Saturday that the bloc was “ready to react” to Russia’s decision to cut gas supplies to the region. France’s Le Maire said separately that Europe’s steadfast opposition to Russia, specifically through economic sanctions and international diplomacy, demonstrates the region’s rising status as a “third world superpower”. “Things are changing radically. Europe is turning into a superpower, not only economically but also politically,” Lemaire said. “I really believe we are moving in the right direction for Europe to play a role in the 21st century between China and the United States,” he added.
