Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Russia yesterday that the EU was ready to impose tougher sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine if it is not satisfied with Moscow's response to Kiev's peace plan.
Speaking before a meeting in Luxembourg of European Union foreign ministers, Hague said leaders of the bloc's 28 states would weigh Russian actions at a summit in Brussels on Friday.
The EU has drawn up plans to impose a range of economic penalties on Russia, but has held back from imposing them because of concerns among some member states about antagonising their major energy supplier.
"(Russian president Vladimir) Putin should be in no doubt that in the EU we are ready to take those measures," Hague told reporters.
"By Friday, we will be able to see how Russia is responding to the peace plan."
The United States has already threatened sanctions on Russia's financial, defence and hi-tech industries, as more Russian military material has flowed into Ukraine.
"The idea here is to deny Russia the kinds of investment and next-generation technology that it needs to continue to grow," a senior US administration official said last week.
The EU has so far imposed several rounds of sanctions, focusing largely on targeting individuals accused of destabilising Ukraine and involved in Moscow's annexation of Crimea.
Also in Luxembourg, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said sanctions would be on the agenda this week, but stopped short of saying if she supported any new measures.
Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, said there were various points of view within the EU, but the option of tougher sanctions remained on the table.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko wants Putin's unqualified backing for a 15-point peace plan.
This will include the signing on Friday of an association agreement with the EU which contains a free-trade deal as well as a series of talks with separatist rebels and a seven-day unilateral ceasefire.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article