Economic sanctions are one of the primary policy tools that states use to condemn and punish the actions of other states. However, conventional wisdom in IR is that they frequently fail to accomplish their goals, while coming with costs and retaliatory sanctions for the nations enacting them. With eight packages of sanctions against Russia already approved by the EU at the time of recording, and the inflation crisis faced by European economies, it is vitally important to understand how to grapple with the side effects of this increasingly widespread policy instrument.
In this panel, Valdis Dombrovskis (Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for An Economy that Works for People), Ana Palacio (Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Visiting Professor at Georgetown University), Jacob Funk Kirkegaard (Senior Fellow at GMF) and Dr Maria Shagina (Diamond-Brown Research Fellow for Economic Sanctions, Standards and Strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies) discuss:
-Past, present and future effectiveness of sanctions
-Damaging Russia’s Military-Industrial Complex
-Measuring & improving the effectiveness of sanctions
-What is the endgame/objectives for the sanctions against Russia?
-What will the economic relations with Russia be post-war?
-How long does it take for sanctions to work, and do we have said time?
Moderator: Pēteris Strautiņš, Economist at Luminor Latvija
00:00 Introducing the topic & panelists
2:50 The economic war against Russia thus far, prospects in the near future
6:25 Enforcing the market cap: how to make countries buy something below market price?
8:20 Have sanctions been successful thus far?
12:00 Damaging Russia’s military-industrial complex
14:10 Measuring the effectiveness of sanctions
18:50 Is there political will to continue the sanctions? How does the attitude of different regions vary?
26:45 Can Europe stay united in regards to sanctions – perspective from the EU Commission
28:50 Will countries outside the EU also keep up the sanctions against Russia?
38:40 Russian propaganda on the causes of the rise of global food prices
42:11 What could a post-war economic relationship with Russia look like?
46:25 What is the endgame for the sanctions against Russia?
54:10 How long does it take for sanctions to work? Do we have the time?
57:40 Can the frozen Russian assets legally be expropriated and used to help Ukraine?