EU states agree rules for confiscating the assets of those who violate sanctions imposed on third countries
The governments of the EU states today agreed on rules aimed at facilitating the confiscation of the assets of organized crime and of all persons who evade the sanctions imposed by the EU bloc on third countries, such as the sanctions against Russia following the aggression against Ukraine, reports the EFE agency, quoted by Agerpres.
EU states have also supported another legislative proposal which introduces a list of offenses together with applicable sanctions, namely fines or prison terms, for breaching the same sanctions.
The two agreements were reached at the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JAI) held in Luxembourg and establish, in both cases, the position of the EU Council (member states) in the subsequent negotiations on these texts with the European Parliament.
People who "do business with individuals or companies included in the EU sanctions list will see their earnings confiscated in the same way as it happens with human traffickers or drug cartels," the EU Council indicated.
Under the new rules, member states must ensure that their authorities tasked with identifying, freezing and managing criminal assets "have qualified staff and adequate technical and technological financial resources".
The European Commission proposed these legislative projects in December to limit the possibility of circumventing the sanctions imposed on Russia. But the national laws of the EU states differ significantly and, in some cases, impose only administrative sanctions, the objective of the new rules being to mitigate these differences.
Following the sanctions imposed on Russia after launching the invasion of Ukraine, assets worth almost 19 billion euros of Russian oligarchs were frozen in the EU, and Western states blocked Russia's access to about 300 billion dollars of its foreign exchange or gold reserves , a measure described by Moscow as a "theft".
The European Commission wants to confiscate these funds to give them to Ukraine. But for this it is necessary to establish a legal basis at the level of the entire European Union.
