Between January and July, Germany bought 451 million euros ($480 million) worth of Indian petroleum products, reports based on an article by Euractiv .
According to the German Statistical Office
this represents an increase of 1,100 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, when Germany imported oil from the subcontinent for 37 million euros.
The 12-fold jump occurred after India became one of the leading buyers of Russian crude oil following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the paper recalls.
It is known: after the Russian invasion in February 2022, Western countries hit Russia with a whole series of sanctions, so Russian oil was also embargoed. Later, the EU - together with the G7 countries - also agreed on a $60 per barrel price limit for Russian crude oil exported to other parts of the world. This allowed India to buy crude oil from Russia at discounted prices before refining it and selling it to European buyers.
So, in practice, the EU is avoiding its own sanctions, as High Representative Josep Borrell pointed out.
"We in the EU do not buy Russian oil, but we buy the diesel produced by refining this Russian oil somewhere else. This has the effect of circumventing our sanctions”
Borrell wrote back in May.
"All this raises moral questions," he added.
Cover image: illustration / Photo: Pixabay
