Council of European Union lists evasion of EU sanctions as criminal offense

BRUSSELS. Nov 28 (Interfax) - The Council of the European Union decided on Monday to list the evasion of EU sanctions as a criminal offense.

"The EU [...] adopted an unprecedented number of sanctions to target Russia's economy [...]. To succeed, their implementation requires a joint effort, and today's decision is an essential tool to ensure any attempts to circumvent these measures will be stopped," a communique published in Brussels quoted Pavel Blazek, justice minister of Czechia that currently presides in the Council of the European Union, as saying.

The communique notes that EU member states give various definitions of what a circumvention of the restrictions is and what penalties should be applicable. "This could lead to different degrees of enforcement of sanctions and a risk of these measures being circumvented, potentially allowing sanctioned persons to continue accessing their assets and supporting regimes targeted by EU measures," the communique said.

The inclusion of the violation of restrictive measures in the list of "EU crimes" is the first of two steps to ensure a similar degree of sanctions enforcement throughout the EU and to dissuade attempts to circumvent or violate EU measures, the communique said. Now the European Commission "will present a proposal for a directive containing minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of EU restrictive measures."

After that, the draft directive will be discussed and approved by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, the communique said.

The areas of crime currently listed as EU crimes are terrorism, trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation of women and children, illicit drug trafficking, illicit arms trafficking, money laundering, corruption, counterfeiting of means of payment, computer crime and organized crime. On May 25, 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal for a decision to extend the list of these areas of crime to include the violation of restrictive measures adopted by the EU.