The European embargo on Russian coal has come into force, four months after it was adopted as part of the fifth package of sanctions against Moscow, at a time when the EU is facing strong tensions over its energy supply, France Presse reports. It is the first EU sanction to hit the Russian energy sector. Until last year, the EU would import 45% of its coal from Russia for 4 billion euros a year, and countries such as Germany and Poland, which used it for electricity production, were particularly dependent on it. In the context in which the annual European consumption of coal, a polluting fossil fuel, fell from 1,200 to 427 million tons between 1990 and 2020, the closure of numerous mines on the continent contributed to the increase of Europeans’ dependence on imports.
