Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

On 23 October 2025, the Council of the European Union adopted the 19th package of restrictive measures against Russia, anchored by Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2033 amending Regulation 833/2014 (sectoral sanctions), Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2035 amending Regulation 269/2014 (asset-freeze listings — 22 individuals + 42 entities, total 69 listings), and Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2041 (parallel Belarus measures). The package closes the Russian-LNG import loophole left open by the 18th package and establishes the architectural template for crypto-asset sanctions. Headline measures: (i) full prohibition on imports of Russian-origin LNG into the EU — short-term contracts banned six months from entry into force (effective 25 April 2026), long-term contracts (> 1 year, executed before 17 June 2025) phased out by 1 January 2027; (ii) full transaction ban on Rosneft and Gazprom Neft (tightening prior partial measures); (iii) five additional Russian banks added to Annex XIV transaction ban (Alfa-Bank, MTS Bank among them; effective 12 November 2025); (iv) full transaction bans on the Mir card payment system and the Faster Payments System (SBP), effective 25 January 2026; (v) first-ever EU sanctions on a stablecoin — the rouble-backed A7A5 (issuer + developer designated) — and a Paraguay-based cryptocurrency exchange used as a circumvention rail; (vi) prohibition on EU operators contracting with 11 listed Russian Special Economic Zones (Annex LII), with mandatory divestment from Alabuga (Tatarstan) and Technopolis Moscow effective 25 January 2026 — no five-year wind-down available; (vii) 45 entities added to Annex IV military end-user list (28 Russian + 17 third-country: 12 Chinese/Hong Kong, 3 Indian, 2 Thai); (viii) new export restrictions on electronic components, microelectronics, acyclic hydrocarbons, pneumatic rubber tires and propellant chemicals (~EUR 155 m of EU 2024 exports); (ix) prohibition on supply of AI, HPC, and quantum-computing services to Russian persons (effective 25 November 2025); (x) tourism-services ban (1 January 2026 wind-down); (xi) 117 additional shadow-fleet vessels listed (cumulative 557, exceeding the 18th package's 444); (xii) four Belarus + Kazakhstan banks listed for SPFS use (effective 2 December 2025); (xiii) binding ownership/control definitions added to Reg. 269/2014 (50 % proprietary-rights threshold + eight-criterion control test). Entry into force on 24 October 2025 (day following publication in OJ L_202502033), except for measures with explicit deferred application dates.

Ley Nº 7546/2025, promulgated by President Santiago Peña and published in Paraguay's Gaceta Oficial Nº 205 on 8 September 2025, establishes Paraguay's first sector-specific national industrial-policy statute for the production and assembly of electrical, electronic, electromechanical, and digital equipment. The law designates this sector as a strategic productive priority and provides the policy umbrella for targeted incentive instruments operationalised under two companion statutes enacted the same day: Ley 7547/2025 (Maquila Regime overhaul) and Ley 7548/2025 (New Fiscal Incentive Regime for Investment). It mandates MIC to develop technical standards in coordination with INTN and establishes a dual on-site / off-site monitoring system for qualifying investment projects.

Paraguay promulgated Ley Nº 7547/2025 on 8 September 2025, comprehensively overhauling the maquila export-platform regime established by Ley Nº 1064/1997 after a 28-year run. The statute introduces a flat 1% tax on the higher of Paraguayan value-added or export-invoice value, a formal "service maquila" modality covering software, BPO, call centres, and digital processes for foreign markets, and a 20-year renewable benefit duration. The National Council of Maquila Export Industries (CNIME) is established as the supervisory authority; a 12-month transition period applies to existing programme holders.

Paraguay promulgated Ley Nº 7548/2025 on 8 September 2025, establishing a modernised fiscal-incentive regime for national and foreign investment that replaces the 35-year-old Ley 60/90 framework. The statute extends IDU (dividend-distribution tax) exemptions to domestic investors — equalising treatment with foreign-owned enterprises for the first time — and provides customs-duty and VAT exemptions on capital goods, raw materials, and inputs for qualifying investment projects approved via bi-ministerial resolution by MIC and MEF. The law is the third pillar of Paraguay's September 2025 industrial-policy reset, companion to Ley 7546/2025 (electronics sector strategy) and Ley 7547/2025 (maquila regime overhaul), and anchors the Peña administration's FDI-promotion architecture with explicit fiscal-stability guarantees and tiered regional/sectoral premium support.