The main problem with the EU sanctions regime lies not in one narrow failure, but in a combination of deliberately preserved exemptions, the absence of secondary sanctions, fragmented enforcement, and unclear requirements for businesses.
This was stated in a comment to Guildhall by Benjamin Hilgenstock, Head of Macroeconomic Research and Strategy at KSE Institute and a member of the RUSI maritime sanctions task force.
In his assessment, “the problems range from deliberately preserved loopholes in restrictive measures — namely imports of pipeline oil and natural gas, as well as the nuclear sector — to the absence of secondary sanctions, fragmented enforcement at the member-state level, and unclear due diligence requirements for EU operators.”
According to him, “the weakness of the EU sanctions enforcement mechanism — and of the sanctions regime as a whole — cannot be reduced to a single problem.” He stressed that “even if that were possible, I would not choose the absence of court cases as the main criterion.”
Hilgenstock also noted separately that “it is certainly important to send economic actors a signal that sanctions violations will not be tolerated.” However, as he stressed, “many of the factors weakening the impact of sanctions are not violations of any kind at all.”
He also drew attention to the specific nature of legal practice in this area. According to him, “court proceedings in the field of sanctions, especially when it comes to complex cases and large companies, take a long time,” and “authorities, as a rule, do not say very much about such cases until the proceedings are finally concluded.”
Earlier, a member of the Lithuanian Seimas stated that responsibility for circumventing EU sanctions against Russia should extend to everyone who knowingly participates in such schemes, including logistics operators. According to him, for such violations to truly lead to criminal cases and real punishment, the European Union needs new legal mechanisms, including the possible introduction of universal jurisdiction for sanctions circumvention.
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