EU looks at smaller Russia sanctions packages after Greece blocks new round

Brussels is weighing a different sanctions process after Greece blocked adoption of a new package against Russia, Financial Times reports. For high-risk PSPs, the detail that matters is not the diplomatic theater but the mechanism: the EU is considering faster, more targeted financial restrictions, with less room for a single member state to stall the whole thing.

1. The FT says European officials are exploring ways to accelerate the adoption of more targeted financial restrictions so that EU countries have fewer opportunities to use a veto. In practice, that means the bloc is looking for a structure that is harder to hold hostage by one capital.
2. According to the paper, the idea gaining ground in the European Commission and among the EU’s most pro-Ukraine members is to agree and adopt sanctions individually or in small thematic packages rather than in large bundles. The logic is simple: smaller files are less exposed to being delayed by one country’s objections.
3. One FT source said the recently adopted 21st EU sanctions package may be the last large package of restrictions. “Now it is completely clear that this approach no longer works,” the unnamed source told the paper.
4. EU ambassadors approved a trimmed 21st sanctions package against Russia last week. The revised version removed a full ban on maritime transport of Russian LNG, which Greece had pushed back on. The package still targets Russia’s and Belarus’s oil sectors, banks and payment systems, Moscow Exchange, and crypto infrastructure.

For PSPs, acquirers, and banks touching high-risk flows, the direction of travel is clear enough: more granular sanctions means more frequent updates, more narrow restrictions, and less reliance on one blockbuster package as the main compliance event.