Professor Panos Koutrakos:

Article 347 is a rather obscure provision. By that I mean it is a provision that has only been litigated once specifically in the case of a trade embargo that Greece imposed in the early nineties. We do not have case law interpreting that provision specifically because the case was withdrawn and the European Court of Justice did not hand down a judgment. However, we have an opinion of Mr. Advocate General Jacobs in that case who explained the discretion that member states enjoy when they determine their security interests. That is the first point to bear in mind.

The second point to bear in mind is that the wording of that provision of Article 347 is almost identical to the wording of Article 99, I think, of the EU-Russia partnership agreement. It was in relation to that identical wording that the European Court of Justice in the Rosneft case said that it was legal, and would be justified, for the European Union in order to maintain peace in Ukraine to-----