The EU is to decide on further energy and financial sanctions against Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis within a week, German chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday.
"If nothing changes [in Ukraine] then these sanctions will be adopted," she told reporters after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
The move comes after reports of increased Russian military involvement in the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine.
Merkel said the European Commission already has a list of further possible measures ready for EU governments to consider and decide on "within a week."
These further measures are in the areas where the EU has already adopted sanctions, "so financial sanctions are possible, but also other areas in the energy sector for example," she said.
In late July the EU targeted Russia's oil sector with economic sanctions banning any new contracts with Russia that would allow access to EU technologies needed for deepwater oil exploration or production, Arctic oil exploration or production and shale oil projects in Russia.
The EC has estimated that exports to Russia of energy-related technologies for non-conventional oil and gas projects are worth some Eur150 million ($200 million) per year.
The EU's July economic sanctions also targeted Russia's access to EU capital markets, defense and dual-use goods.
The EU's earlier sanctions had focused on visa bans and asset freezes on people and later companies and organizations involved in destabilizing Ukraine and annexing Crimea.
The EU moved to economic sanctions after more than 200 EU citizens died when civilian Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was brought down in Ukraine's conflict zone.
Merkel said it was too early to say yet what the impact these first economic sanctions have had on Russia.
EU leaders all agreed to exclude any military options to resolve the conflict, so "the options that are left...are economic sanctions," she said.
"I am absolutely convinced that we need to do something to clearly demonstrate what the values are that we defend," she said.
EU leaders have also asked the EC to include in its proposal for further measures a list of "every person and institution dealing with the [Ukrainian] separatist groups in the Donbass."
EU President Herman van Rompuy told reporters after the meeting that the process for deciding further sanctions had sped up "in a way that is unprecedented since the outbreak of the crisis."
He said the meeting showed EU leaders were determined to continue with sanctions as needed, even knowing that this "creates problems and tensions" between EU countries. "That is the price to pay," he said.
