EU Attorney General announced readiness to investigate cases of circumvention of sanctions against Russia

The European prosecutor’s office is ready to take on the investigation of crimes related to the circumvention of anti-Russian sanctions, but so far there are no legal tools for this, stated Bloomberg EU Attorney General Laura Codruca Kövesi.

At the end of November, the EU Council unanimously approved the decision to include sanctions violations in the list of crimes in the European Union. Now the European Commission must submit a proposal for a directive containing minimum rules regarding the definition of criminal offenses and penalties for violation of restrictive measures. The document will then be sent for approval to the European Parliament and the EU Council.

The European prosecutor’s office, as Kövesi noted, is ready to take on the investigation of violations of sanctions, the bloc intends to make it a criminal offense in accordance and give the prosecutor’s office the power to prosecute.

“One of the possible crimes related to the violation of sanctions is smuggling, and we can already investigate this. Therefore, we could start today if we had legal instruments,” said the EU Attorney General.

The Council of the EU approved earlier the decision to include the circumvention of sanctions in the list of crimes, a statement to this effect was published on the website of the body on November 28. Currently, this list includes terrorism, human trafficking, sexual exploitation of women and children, drug and arms trafficking, money laundering, counterfeiting of means of payment, corruption, cybercrime and organized crime. The European Commission submitted a proposal to include violations of restrictive measures in it on May 25.

The decision of the Council of the EU to include circumvention of sanctions in the list of criminal offenses and the possible confiscation of frozen Russian assets will “finally bury” the reputation of the EU as a reliable jurisdiction for entrepreneurs, stated after that, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. Before “expropriating” someone else’s property with “at least a semblance of legality”, Europe should take into account two aspects, Zakharova believes. Firstly, in this case, there is a high risk of massive filing of lawsuits by affected companies or individuals in the national courts of the EU member countries, which, unlike the European Union, “openly declare the primacy of political expediency before the law” and can “decide not in the right way [чиновникам ЕС]”, she noted.

Secondly, “fragments of the former reputation” of the EU as a guarantor of compliance with the basic principles of a market economy are at stake. As a result, the circumvention of sanctions is recognized at the general legal level as a criminal offense along with terrorism, the spread of drugs and weapons, money laundering, says a representative of the Foreign Ministry.