sanctions against oligarchs
EU wants to freeze Abramovich assets
03/14/2022, 06:19 p.m
Great Britain imposed punitive measures on Roman Abramovich, now the European Union is following suit. Among other things, the FC Chelsea owner should be refused entry into the EU. The sanctions are aimed at other oligarchs, but Abramovich is a special case: he has an EU passport.
In the Ukraine war, the European Union imposed sanctions on other Russian oligarchs – including the owner of the British football club Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich. They are threatened with the confiscation of their assets in the EU and entry bans, as diplomats in Brussels announced. Britain had also previously decided on sanctions against Abramovich and other billionaires who are said to belong to the “inner circle” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Abramovich is a special case, because in addition to Russian and Israeli citizenship, he also has Portuguese citizenship and thus an EU passport. However, the circumstances of his naturalization are currently under investigation in Portugal. According to Forbes magazine, the 55-year-old’s fortune is estimated at more than eleven billion euros. Among other things, he owns a villa in the London district of Kensington and the luxury yacht “Eclipse”, which was the largest yacht in the world until 2013.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner said at a meeting with his European colleagues in Brussels that the EU wanted to put “maximum pressure on Putin” with the sanctions. “We want to isolate Russia politically, financially and economically,” emphasized the FDP politician. “All options are on the table”. For the time being, however, Lindner ruled out an oil and gas embargo against Russia based on the US model. “In my view, such an embargo would not have the hoped-for effect on the situation in Ukraine,” he stressed. Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke out against it at the EU summit in Versailles on Friday. Sanctions decisions require unanimity in the EU.
Von der Leyen informs Selenskyj about the sanctions package
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly demanded an energy embargo against Russia from the EU in order to cut Putin’s money flows. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter that she had informed Selenskyj in advance about the EU’s fourth package of sanctions.
“Putin’s war is becoming more brutal every day,” von der Leyen criticized. At the Versailles summit, she announced, among other things, an export ban on European luxury goods to Russia. This should also affect vehicles in the premium class from Germany. In addition, an import ban for Russian steel and, according to French information, also for aluminum is to be imposed.
So far, 862 people responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and 53 companies and organizations have been on the EU’s “black list”. In addition, the Europeans and their partner countries had, among other things, excluded a number of Russian banks from the Swift international payment system and frozen the foreign assets of the Russian central bank. Because of the Ukraine war, Germany also stopped the approval process for the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which was supposed to deliver Russian gas directly to East Germany.