Insight
The case for using the Anti-Coercion Instrument against Russia by Aslak Berg, 5 June 2025 The EU sanctions regime against Russia is threatened by a Hungarian veto. The Anti-Coercion Instrument would allow the EU to bypass Budapest. On May 20th, the EU approved its 17th sanctions package against Russia. Crucially, on this occasion Hungary and its pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Orbán did not threaten a veto, as the package “mainly concerned legal entities that were not problematic for them.” Passage of previous sanctions packages has not always been so easy. While Orbán has never exercised his veto on sanctions against Russia, he and his ideological kinsman, Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico, have been able to obtain concessions that weaken the overall impact of sanctions. Many sanctions, such as asset freezes and visa bans, need to be extended by a fresh vote in the Council every six months: this generates a constant threat that a small minority can upend EU sanctions by blocking their renewal. With sanctions next needing to be renewed in July, there will be fresh pressure from Budapest and Bratislava, and very likely demands for more concessions. Ideally, these decisions would be taken by qualified majority vote instead of by consensus, but there is no chance that the required reform – which would require a unanimous vote in the European Council – will happen in the immediate future. The EU is therefore in need of alternative tools to bypass any Hungarian (and possibly Slovak) veto. Fortunately, such a tool already exists in the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI). The ACI is a new tool that was introduced in 2023 to allow the EU to defend its interests against economic coercion from elsewhere. The ACI reflected the lessons from Trump’s first administration as well as Chinese economic pressure against individual member-states – notably Lithuania – and its use has most recently been discussed as a possible way to respond to Trump’s tariffs. It is thus intended to be a trade defence instrument, not a sanctions regime. In the taxonomy of EU competences, that means it falls outside the foreign policy regime – where the EU is institutionally weak and every member-state has a veto – and inside the trade policy competence – where the EU is very strong and decisions are taken by qualified majority vote. It represents a classical EU compromise by granting the EU the necessary power to act, but only in a limited set of circumstances.
CER INSIGHT: THE CASE FOR USING THE ANTI-COERCION INSTRUMENT AGAINST RUSSIA 5 June 2025
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