The EU fears Russia will commandeer more European factories, according to new sanctions — which could see even dead Russians’ money kept frozen.
Russians “benefitting from the compulsory transfer of ownership of, or control over, entities established in Russia that were previously owned or controlled by Union entities” can, in future, be subject to EU visa-bans and asset-freezes, the new EU sanctions say.
They also include a special “derogation”, under which Russian firms or oligarchs’ frozen money in the EU can be paid out to European victims.
The permitted transfers would “enable the payment of the consideration agreed by the parties or for the compensation decided by a judicial or administrative authority … in the context of the compulsory transfer of ownership or control by the government of the Russian Federation”.
Russian president Vladimir Putin spooked those EU companies still doing business in Russia in July, when he seized the factories of French food-maker Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg.
Putin passed them on to his cronies, including a nephew of Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov and businessman Taimuraz Bolloev.
The EU blacklisted a further 60 Russian individuals and 84 entities on Monday, including one of Putin’s cousins, Russian officers and mercenaries, and officials who abused Ukrainian children, but not yet including the Danone or Carlsberg factories’ new Russian owners.
The EU added several Russian drone-making firms and media firms to the blacklist, compared to an initial draft in November.
The new additions included Spas TV and Tsargrad TV.
Spas TV was “owned by the Russian Orthodox Church,” the EU said, and “justifies Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine on religious and spiritual grounds”.
Tsargrad TV was “promoting nationalistic view about the purported Russian character of the illegally occupied territories of Ukraine and justifying the illegal transportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and their subsequent adoption by Russian families”, the EU said.
Meanwhile, two Kazakstan-based firms got off the hook, compared to the November draft.
The EU had been intending to impose tougher export controls on Arba and Da Group on grounds they were helping Russia to buy prohibited technology, but their names were no longer on Monday’s list.
The headline item in the EU’s 12th round of sanctions since Putin invaded Ukraine almost two years ago was a ban on imports of Russian diamonds.
This prompted opposition memes of Russian tourists visiting the EU wearing hats and fur coats dripping with gems.
But the EU ban extended to any kind of “transit” of Russian diamonds across its borders.
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And Russian “personal affects” could only enter the EU if they “do not pose significant circumvention concerns, such as personal hygiene items, or clothing worn by travellers or contained in their luggage, and which are clearly intended for their or their family members’ strict personal use”, Monday’s sanctions said.
The EU also restricted Russian exports of iron, copper, and aluminium.
The sanctions regime — the EU’s toughest ever — now covers almost 2,000 Russian VIPs and entities and bans over €130bn a year in trade.
Eternal freeze
Dozens of Russian oligarchs have sued the EU to get off the blacklist in pending cases.
Lobbying EU capitals and institutions was another way to get off EU blacklists in the past — but that is now illegal under EU sanctions and would have to be done clandestinely.
Previously, dying was the only automatic way of getting your name deleted and your fortune unfrozen.
But under Monday’s decision, the EU will be free to hold onto the frozen money even posthumously.
This “sets out the conditions on which the [EU] Council is able to retain the name of a deceased person on the list … [if] it considers there is a likelihood that the assets concerned would otherwise be used to finance Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.
The EU deemed the measure necessary because clannish Kremlin ties meant that inherited wealth ended up in the same hands, politically speaking.
“It was needed, because the former automatism in delisting [deaths] was a source of concern,” an EU diplomat said.
“Anyways, you never know if a guy like Prigozhin for instance is really dead or alive,” he added, referring to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Russian mercenary boss under EU sanctions said by Putin to have died in air accident in August, after he had earlier launched a mini-coup against the Russian president.