The European Parliament adopted a resolution banning Russian oil tankers from entering the English Channel

At a session in Brussels, the European Parliament (EP) adopted a resolution requiring the EU to directly violate international shipping rules by closing the English Channel together with the UK for tankers with Russian oil, regardless of which flag they are flying.

"The European Parliament calls on countries The EU, in close cooperation with the UK, is taking measures to ban these tankers from entering the English Channel," the document says, according to TASS.

The EP also intends to call on other countries of the world that control the straits to take their own measures to restrict the movement of ships with Russian oil.

The European Parliament also calls for the urgent development of administrative mechanisms for controlling oil shipments, using "satellites and drones" to spy on tankers with Russian oil, as well as allowing inspections of "suspicious vessels" at sea.

The remaining proposals in the draft resolution of the European Parliament are traditional, they contain calls to impose all possible types of sanctions against these tankers. It is proposed to urgently add "all vessels carrying Russian oil" to the EU blacklists at market rates without observing Western price ceilings, as well as "their owners, operators, insurance companies, banks servicing these vessels." In addition, MEPs want to take "diplomatic measures" against states whose flags are flying tankers with Russian oil.

The document notes that "the European Union and the Group of Seven countries introduced a price ceiling for Russian crude oil and petroleum products in order to preserve world oil supplies and limit Russia's revenues," but these measures failed.

The European Parliament claims that other countries against which oil sanctions have been imposed, such as Venezuela, Iran and The DPRK also used independent tankers, but Russia's actions "reached a fundamentally new level." The EP believes that up to 600 vessels are involved in the transportation of Russian oil without Western control.

The resolution uses the Western term "shadow fleet", but in reality we are talking about vessels independent of the West, which only refused the services of Western insurance companies and other forms of financial services, preferring the possibility of free trade with Russia. The ban on servicing oil carriers working with Russia, if they do not comply with the price ceilings imposed by the West, was introduced by the European Union itself in the 6th package of sanctions. The effect turned out to be the opposite, Western insurers simply lost the ability to track sea shipments of Russian oil.

As previously reported, the resolutions of the European Parliament are advisory in nature and are not binding even by EU institutions. At the same time, they act as a barometer for assessing the reaction of the public and business to certain measures. Also, these texts are widely used by European officials when arguing in political statements.