{"id":474156,"date":"2026-05-30T04:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/474156\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T04:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:11:13","slug":"eu-sanctions-on-russian-owned-aughinish-alumina-would-be-self-defeating-says-taoiseach-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/474156\/","title":{"rendered":"EU sanctions on Russian-owned Aughinish Alumina would be \u2018self-defeating, says Taoiseach \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imposing sanctions on products exported by Co Limerick-based Aughinish Alumina<\/a> to Russia would be \u201cself-defeating\u201d and would harm the European economy more than Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u2019s regime, the Taoiseach has said. <\/p>\n

Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said the company was a vital part of the European supply chain and that its products were designated as \u201ccritical raw materials\u201d for Europe and were provided to smelters in Dunkirk in France and also to Sweden. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just about Ireland but rather it is a key part of the European supply chain,\u201d Martin told reporters at the Bloom festival<\/a> in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole principle of sanctions is that we don\u2019t damage ourselves more than Russia, or that they don\u2019t become self-defeating. It would appear to me that Aughinish Alumina falls into that category.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach was responding to briefing notes and a letter sent by Aughinish Alumina to him on May 20th, in which it argued that European sanctions would have an \u201cunintended consequences\u201d including an impact on hundreds of jobs at the plant and on the Irish electricity grid, as excess energy from the operation is provided to some 200,000 Irish homes. <\/p>\n

The Co Limerick plant is owned by the Russian metals giant Rusal, which has deep connections to the Kremlin and Moscow\u2019s arms industry.<\/p>\n

However, the European Commission<\/a> has no plans to propose sanctioning alumina supplied to Russia by Aughinish due to the knock-on effect such a move would have on European industry.<\/p>\n

An Irish Times investigation, carried out in co-operation with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, found that the Aughinish plant is shipping vast amounts of alumina to smelters in Russia<\/a>, where it is used to make aluminium, which is then sold to a trading company, ASK, that supplies dozens of Russian arms manufacturers.<\/p>\n

The revelations about the downstream role the Limerick plant plays in the supply chain of the Russian military effort has led to calls for its exports to Russia to be targeted in EU economic sanctions. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Pressure grows on Government over Aughinish Alumina as dozens of MEPs demand export banOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Asked if the Government had been threatened not to call for European sanctions, Martin said it had never been threatened in a direct way but issues had been pointed out in the letters sent to him. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it would have an impact if there were sanctions on Aughinish in terms of employment there. We are looking at about 1,000 in direct employment between contractors and the 470 or so who are working there.\u201d <\/p>\n

Asked if Ireland had lobbied the European Union on these issues, he said the Government had \u201cengaged\u201d on them. <\/p>\n

\u201cLobbying is probably too strong a word but we do discuss it as all member states do when it comes to packages in relation to sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aughinish is not expected to be targeted in a fresh package of sanctions being drawn up by the commission in Brussels. The commission\u2019s decision not to include Aughinish in the next round of sanctions was first reported by RT\u00c9 News on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris said the Government \u201ccan\u2019t cherry-pick\u201d the companies sanctioned by the EU based on what sanctions might be costly to Ireland.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0From the Shannon to Siberia: How alumina from a Limerick refinery enters Russia\u2019s weapons supply chainOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He told reporters in Cork that the \u201cclear view\u201d of Aughinish was that alumina produced in the Co Limerick plant was not being used to produce Russian weapons being used against Ukraine but that the Department of Enterprise was carrying out its own investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, companies can give information. It\u2019s helpful when companies provide information to Government as to the factual position, but it\u2019s also important on an issue as serious as an attack on another European country and an illegal war that Government also investigates this.\u201d<\/p>\n

EU officials are concerned about the knock-on impact of a decision to levy economic sanctions on alumina or the Rusal-owned plant, due to its role as a big supplier of European smelters and heavy industry. <\/p>\n

National governments are to begin debating the scope of the EU\u2019s next bundle of sanctions on Russia, the 21st round of measures since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n

Belgium\u2019s foreign minister Maxime Pr\u00e9vot has said he would push for sanctions on the Co Limerick plant at EU level. <\/p>\n

The Government would have the power to veto any EU drive to sanction alumina or target the Co Limerick plant. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imposing sanctions on products exported by Co Limerick-based Aughinish Alumina to Russia would be \u201cself-defeating\u201d and would harm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[163884,1712,61,60,1396,43,3589,9688],"class_list":["post-474156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-aughinish-alumina","tag-european-commission","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-ukraine-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}