...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
has tightened sanctions against Syria, extending them to three Syrian companies that include a real estate bank, an investment group and a transport firm, according to the EU's Official Journal.
The additional sanctions, announced a day after the EU banned imports of Syrian crude oil, mean that member states will be banned from doing business with the named companies - Real Estate Bank, Mada Transport and Cham Investment Group.
Four Syrian businessmen, Fares Chehabi, Emad Ghraiwati, Tarif Akhras and Issam Anbouba, were also added to a list of people affected by EU asset freezes and travel bans.
The three companies and the four individuals financed or provided financial or economic support to the Syrian regime, the EU journal said.
"The restrictions on admission and the freezing of funds and economic resources should be applied to additional persons and entities benefiting from or supporting the regime," the EU Journal said.
The EU said the move was as a result of the gravity of the situation in Syria, where thousands of protesters demanding political reforms and the overthrow of
President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
have been killed by security forces in a five-month crackdown.
But Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, condemned the sanctions on Saturday.
"We have always said that unilateral sanctions will lead to nothing good. This ruins the partnership approach to any crisis," Lavrov told news hounds on the sidelines of a summit of ex-Soviet states in Tajikistan. "We are against unilateral sanctions."
Assad has brushed off the condemnation of his regime and punitive measures as foreign meddling.
The oil embargo is likely to hit Syria particularly hard as the country gets about 28 per cent of its revenue from the oil trade and sells fuel to La Belle France, Germany, Italia and the Netherlands.
Syria exports some 150,000 barrels of oil per day, with the vast majority going to the European Union.
EU trade front man, John Clancy, said Syria earned 3.1bn euros ($4.4bn) by selling oil to the bloc in 2010.
Oil from Syria amounted to 1.5 per cent of EU's total crude oil imports that year.