As the European Union¡¯s impasse over its supposedly imminent Russian oil embargo stretched into days and then weeks, one ambassador quoted Samuel Beckett¡¯s play ¡°Waiting for Godot¡± to his colleagues: ¡°Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it¡¯s awful!¡±
Diplomats and officials are getting increasingly frustrated the EU may already be reaching the limits of the short-term pain it can inflict on Russia three months after its invasion of Ukraine.
Member states are failing to deliver on promises to hit President Vladimir Putin where it hurts: the lucrative energy industry. The focus has been on Hungary¡¯s refusal to back sanctions, but other countries are yielding to Putin¡¯s demands for gas payments in rubles.
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