The US and EU step up efforts to share information and coordinate sanctions policy in an effort to make general economic and financial sanctions against Russia and other countries more effective. FT reports..

Washington and Brussels plan to announce they are committed to working more closely on sanctions as a key tool to achieve common foreign policy goals, according to a US Treasury Department statement received by the Financial Times..

The announcement follows a meeting last month in Brussels where officials from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control and the European External Action Service and the EU Financial Services Directorate sought to negotiate sanctions, promote enforcement, strengthen enforcement and address common foreign policy issues..

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The EU and the US have been working closely on the imposition and implementation of sanctions against Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year and are now in a new phase, trying to limit the circumvention of sanctions and the sale of dual-use weapons and technologies to Moscow..

The decision to step up technical coordination on sanctions reflects the recognition by Washington and Brussels that they need a better system in case they need to use similar economic weapons in the future.. Last year, the US and the UK made efforts to increase bilateral coordination on the implementation and application of sanctions, and Brussels is considering creating its own version of the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Pointing to the collateral damage that Western sanctions could cause, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that officials are also looking into ways to ensure that sanctions do not impede humanitarian trade and aid to those in need and that people in jurisdictions that are subject to sanctions remain free online..

“The multilateral application of sanctions maximizes their effectiveness, minimizes unexpected costs, and eases the burden of enforcing restrictions on the general public,” the statement said..

In addition to imposing broad sanctions on the Russian Central Bank, Russian top officials, banks, state-owned enterprises, oligarchs and defense companies, the EU and the US have also coordinated G7-led caps on Russian oil prices and tried to act as a united front to force other countries not to help Moscow..

But there was some disagreement about how far isolation of Russia could be taken.. While the United States insisted on a complete ban on exports to Russia by the G7, European allies, along with Japan, resisted, the Financial Times wrote last month..

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Earlier it was reported that representatives of the EU states at a meeting in Brussels could not reach an agreement on the 11th package of sanctions against Russia.. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the new sanctions will focus on circumventing trade restrictions already in place and were developed in close coordination with the G7 countries..

Also, in the 11th package of sanctions, the EU has set its sights on the transportation of Russian oil by sea in the so-called shadow fleet, which transports crude oil and oil products at prices below the level set by the G7 countries..