EUROPEAN COMPANIES RUSSIAN TIES COULD MAKE SANCTIONS TOUGH

Europe is contemplating sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine — and the work is far from simple.

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Sanctions would seek to maximize the pain for the Kremlin, its key banks and energy companies but also avoid jeopardizing the continent’s Russian-dependent energy supplies or inflicting too much damage on European companies with strong ties to Russia, including German industrial manufacturer Siemens AG, Italian tire maker Pirelli and automakers like Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.

Russia has ties to world energy and financial markets and is home to major foreign partnerships and investments, so any measures will have repercussions outside the country. The question is how much.

The European Union’s executive commission isn’t revealing the sanctions it’s discussing in order to leave the Kremlin guessing. Officials say measures would be more sweeping and severe than those imposed in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

WAITING FOR WORD

Given that it’s not known what the measures would be, European corporations are warily watching developments and limiting their comments to hopes for a diplomatic solution.

BMW said “politics sets out the rules within which we operate as a company” and that “if the framework conditions change, we will evaluate them and decide how to deal with them.”

Siemens AG, which gets about 1% of its revenue from Russia, is developing a new generation of high-speed trains with Russian partners to be built at a plant there. Siemens Energy, a separate company partly owned by Siemens AG, is building power plants and equipment for 57 wind farms in Russia.