Why was it so hard for the EU countries to agree on a Russian oil price cap?
Issues like this usually present challenges in the EU. Other Western countries are no longer buying Russia’s oil and petroleum products. Europe, however, continued doing so until recently, and its companies play a key role in terms of transportation, insurance, and so on. The US and Canadian companies are not involved in this, so little actually depends on them.
The previous sanction packages the EU introduced had exclusions, and the current embargo (the EU has banned the sea import of Russia’s crude oil starting 5 December; petroleum products will also be subject to the restriction starting 5 February 2023 — Novaya-Europe) has an exclusion for Hungary. There were different stances, ranging from the $30 dollars per barrel price cap voiced by Poland up to the $70 per barrel cap backed by Greece and Malta. Many ship operators are registered in Malta and Greece, and those companies transport Russia’s oil, too. Therefore, the economies of these two countries depend on this sector.