{"id":547365,"date":"2026-07-13T12:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547365\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T12:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:23:15","slug":"aughinish-alumina-ireland-will-work-with-european-commission-if-sanctions-proposed-mcentee-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547365\/","title":{"rendered":"Aughinish Alumina: Ireland will \u2018work with\u2019 European Commission if sanctions proposed, McEntee says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government will work with the European Commission in the event it proposes to target Aughinish Alumina<\/a> in a future round of economic sanctions to hobble Russia\u2019s war effort, Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made it very clear that Ireland does not want to in any way support the manufacturing of arms that are quite literally killing civilians on a weekly basis\u201d in Ukraine, McEntee said. <\/p>\n

EU states are in the final stretch of negotiations to approve the bloc\u2019s 21st package of sanctions, which is expected to renew a cap limiting the price paid for Russia oil, blacklist a host of Russian-linked entities, and possibly ban former Russian soldiers from travelling to European countries on tourist visas. <\/p>\n

That set of fresh sanctions is likely to be signed off this week. The commission will then begin considering what to include in a 22nd round of EU sanctions, aimed at making it hard for Russia to continue its war in Ukraine. <\/p>\n

The commission, which is the EU\u2019s executive body led by Ursula von der Leyen, proposes the packages of sanctions. The measures then must be unanimously approved by the union\u2019s 27 national governments, following a back-and-forth over their scope. <\/p>\n

There will be significant pressure on the commission to propose banning exports of alumina to Russia, a move that would target Aughinish Alumina. <\/p>\n

Reporting by The Irish Times and other media outlets detailed how Aughinish Alumina is exporting vast amounts of the raw material alumina to smelters in Russia, where it is then sold to a company supplying aluminium to Russian arms manufacturers.<\/p>\n

A Department of Enterprise investigation into the Co Limerick plant\u2019s exports to Russia is due to be completed in the coming days. <\/p>\n

Speaking in Brussels on Monday, McEntee said it was important that authorities \u201chave all of the facts\u201d surrounding Aughinish. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve engaged with the commission throughout this process, and once that review is completed we\u2019ll continue to engage,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would stress we have agreed and supported every single package of sanctions that have been proposed. This is not something that has been proposed to date. If it were to be, we will work with the commission, but we have never \u2026 pushed back on any package of sanctions,\u201d the Fine Gael Minister said. <\/p>\n

The Government had been arguing for the EU to levy \u201cas strong sanctions as possible\u201d on Russia, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know they\u2019re having an impact on the Russian economy, we know they\u2019re having an impact on their ability to wage this war, so we will continue to support sanctions in whatever form,\u201d McEntee said. <\/p>\n

The commission had not suggested including alumina products or exports in earlier packages of proposed sanctions, in part because of the important role Aughinish Alumina also plays supplying European heavy industry. <\/p>\n

The Shannon estuary refinery is owned by Russian metals giant Rusal, which Swedish tax authorities recently concluded remains under the control of sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska.<\/p>\n

Aughinish Alumina previously warned it could be forced to shut the Irish plant in the event its exports were sanctioned by the EU. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government will work with the European Commission in the event it proposes to target Aughinish Alumina in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[163884,1556,61,60,1396,43,3589,9688],"class_list":["post-547365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-aughinish-alumina","tag-helen-mcentee","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\/547365","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=547365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}