European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has called for an urgent review of how the European Union should respond if the United States imposes new sanctions on Russia, which would hurt the European interest and the European companies operating in the energy space. Rumors suggest that EU is ready to retaliate within days if the United States imposed new sanctions against Russia without addressing the European concerns. There are deep concerns that the measures could hit European energy companies involved in Russia-related projects, including those engaged in the Nord Stream 2 initiative to build additional undersea natural gas pipelines between Russia and Germany.

US lawmakers reached an agreement at the weekend for sweeping new sanctions to be levied against Russia as Washington seeks to punish Moscow for its reported meddling in last year’s election. The House is expected to vote on Tuesday on the legislation, which will be imposed not just on Russia but also on Iran and North Korea. An earlier version of the bill was passed in the Senate by a vote of 97-2 in June. However, that legislation concerned only Moscow and Tehran, forcing legislators to postpone the bill’s passage as they negotiated the additional sanctions for Pyongyang.

President Trump’s White House administration was against the bill, especially sanctioning Russia part, however, a Presidential veto on the Russian sanctions bill would surely face strong resistance in the Congress due to the overwhelming bi-partisan support for such sanctions. However, it looks like that the bill would get passed and signed into law as the White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced on Sunday that the administration supported the new language of the bill and suggested that President Donald Trump would sign it. She said, ““The administration is supportive of being tough on Russia, particularly in putting these sanctions in place……..The original piece of legislation was poorly written but we were able to work with the House and Senate. And the administration is happy with the ability to do that and make those changes that were necessary. And we support where the legislation is now.”

The new legislation doesn’t impose new sanctions on Russia immediately but opens up provisions in doing that. The EU is looking for written assurance from Washington that new sanctions which might hurt European companies would not be imposed.