UPDATE — this extends our earlier coverage: Bulgaria's Kirill Veto Sinks the EU's 21st Russia Package Again — But the Blacklistings Keep Coming

The push to get the EU's 21st Russia sanctions package over the line has now, in the words of Euronews, gone to the wire, with member states making a final effort before the deadline and the Bulgarian foreign minister giving an interview on Sofia's position. What has not changed is the reason the package is stuck: Bulgaria is still blocking the listing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, and one member state's objection is all it takes.

As we reported earlier, the wider package cannot move because Sofia refuses to sign off on blacklisting the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. What is new is that the machinery has kept turning around the blockage: two separate sets of designations have just been adopted despite the deadlock.

Why one vote freezes everything

A full sanctions package of this kind — the twenty-first since Russia's full-scale invasion — is adopted by the Council of the EU, and the decision that underpins its restrictive measures requires unanimity. Every one of the 27 governments must agree. There is no override, no supermajority that can carry the day. A single "no" — or even a refusal to lift a reservation — is a veto, which is precisely the leverage Bulgaria is now exercising over the Kirill listing.

That is why the entire package is hostage to one name. The blacklisting of a patriarch, the energy provisions, the financial measures and everything else bundled into the package rise and fall together, because they are adopted as a single legal act that needs all 27 signatures.

The measures that got through anyway

And yet sanctions kept coming. The EU imposed restrictions on nine Russians and four companies over cyberattacks, and on 15 people accused of torturing Ukrainian prisoners of war, including at the Olenivka prison. These are not part of the frozen package; they are their own legal acts under existing sanctions frameworks — the cyber regime and the human-rights regime — where implementing decisions to add names can be taken by qualified majority rather than unanimity.

That distinction is the whole story of these two speeds. Adding individuals to an established thematic sanctions list does not require every capital to consent; a qualified majority — a weighted threshold of member states representing a share of the EU population — suffices. So Bulgaria's objection, which bites on the unanimous package, does not reach these separate designations.

What options remain before the deadline

Procedurally, the ways out are narrow. Sofia could lift or narrow its reservation — the interview the Bulgarian foreign minister gave Euronews as the vote went to the wire suggests the position is at least being publicly explained rather than simply dug in. Alternatively, the presidency could strip the contested Kirill listing out of the package so the remaining measures can be adopted unanimously by the other 26 plus a consenting Bulgaria — the pattern our earlier reporting flagged, where the package advances but the blacklistings arrive piecemeal.

Hypothesis: the Kirill name will be dropped from the 21st package rather than the package being sunk. Supporting this: the separate cyber and torture designations show the EU is willing to route around the veto to keep sanctions flowing, and the effort is described as going to the wire, implying a deal is being sought. Against this: Sofia has held the line through repeated attempts, and a public foreign-minister interview may signal it intends to defend, not abandon, its position.

What to watch next: whether the Bulgarian foreign minister's comments translate into a lifted reservation before the deadline; whether the Council splits the Kirill listing out to salvage the rest of the package; and whether more designations keep arriving through the qualified-majority thematic regimes while the unanimous package stays frozen. The two speeds of EU sanctions have rarely been so visible in a single week.