Ports, insurance, payments, designations. Hungary abstains and refuses to implement. Estonia records that the package "measures the rope while the arson is at the door."
Adopted. The European Union has imposed sanctions on the United States of America.
Ports, insurance, payments, and a designation list on 2 February. Hungary abstained, which does not block, and has announced it will not implement.
Four hours over the scheduled close. Rewritten twice overnight. Nearly collapsed at noon.
What was rejected matters as much. A general ban on US military aircraft and vessels using any EU infrastructure was dropped — Berlin and Paris said it would be "a blockade, drafted and signed."
Naming US officials individually was set aside and "held in reserve." That phrase is going to come back.
Estonia's minority statement, in full, because it is the best sentence anyone has produced this month:
"The package as adopted measures the rope while the arson is at the door."
Genuine question for anyone who knows: what happens to ordinary things?
I have a US pension from eight years in Boston. My sister banks with an American bank here. Is any of that in this, or is it only governments? Nobody in the coverage says and everyone I ask says "probably fine" in a voice that is not fine.
Those weapons are American property, in American vaults, with American locks. Nobody needs a letter from me to understand who they belong to.
The letter had arrived the evening before, and it asked for one page conceding consultation — not custody, not security, not a change in who held the weapons. No reply was drafted. Two days later German, Dutch and Belgian military police sealed all three airfields, exactly as the letter said they would.
The port ban is retrospective and follows the vessel, not the voyage. Any hull that has called at US-controlled Greenland since 19 Jan is barred from every EU port, permanently.
Charter desks were declining US government business within ninety minutes. Not because the rule required it. Because compliance departments do not wait for annexes.
Only governments and only named companies. Personal pensions, personal accounts, ordinary retail banking: not in it, not intended to be in it, not going to be in it.
What CAN reach you is banks being over-cautious and slow. Annoying, not dangerous. Keep records of anything delayed.
"Probably fine" is right, and I understand why the voice is not fine.
The international rule of law is indivisible. It does not become negotiable because the state breaking it is powerful, or because it was once our closest partner.
Watching European officials discover, live, that a sanctions regime is easy to write and impossible to steer.
We have been on the receiving end of eleven of these. Every single one hit a hospital supply chain nobody intended to hit. Every single one had an official at a podium saying "there are humanitarian exemptions".
The exemptions are real. They also do not work, because the compliance officer is not reading the annex.
Every step on this ladder makes the climb down harder.
EU: we have sanctioned the united states of america
hungary: we have not
EU: you voted for it
hungary: i abstained
EU: that counts
hungary: does it though
this is the funniest and worst thing i have ever watched
"I've seen a lot of letters this week."
He has seen one. It arrived last night, it is one page long, and it asks for consultation before the warheads move. Not custody. Consultation.
There is no reply being drafted. I have now checked three times.
Those weapons are American property, in American vaults, with American locks. Nobody needs a letter from me to understand who they belong to.
Nothing is happening.
I remain closed. The gentlemen with the codes remain inside. The gentlemen without the codes remain outside. It is raining.
Nothing continues to happen.
URGENT: German military police have sealed the perimeter access roads at Büchel Air Base. Dutch and Belgian forces reported doing the same at Volkel and Kleine Brogel. All three sites store US nuclear weapons.
Precision matters tonight, so:
The Americans have not been disarmed. Nobody has approached the inner wire. The vaults are American, the codes are American, and no host nation can open, arm or move anything.
The airfield is German. The tower is German. The power is German. The sky is German.
Neither side can act. Both sides are armed. This is a stalemate with about sixty thermonuclear weapons in the middle of it.