On 14 November, the European Parliament adopted a resolution initiated by Renew Europe calling for more targeted sanctions on the “shadow fleet” in the EU’s next sanctions packages against Russia. 

The text calls for EU-wide measures to ensure the immediate inspection of oil tankers operating in EU waters and verify their insurance coverage and compliance with IMO requirements. 

Russia is actively circumventing EU sanctions by operating old vessels under the flags of countries with low safety standards, posing a major ecological threat in case of accidents. 

Renew Europe also denounced the risk of these unsafe and uninsured Russian vessels to maritime security and calls for ship-to-ship transfers of Russian crude oil and oil products in EU waters to be banned. 

“Ghost ships transporting illegal Russian oil are unmitigated natural disasters waiting to happen passing through our waters and past our shores. We want the European Commission and the European member states to ban these dangerous ships from our waters, and in the process enforce our European sanctions,” said Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy MEP. 

“The "ghost" fleet that Russia has set up to circumvent the sanctions affecting its oil exports and to finance its war against Ukraine is one of the largest fleets in the world. It is high time we denounced this situation and to call on the Commission and the 27 European governments to act," added Bernard Guetta MEP.