On the eve of the presentation of the European Commission’s 6th package of sanctions against Russia (see EUROPE 12945/1), the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament gave its support, on Tuesday 3 May in Strasbourg, to the initiative of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, aiming at sanctioning the facilitators of the war provoked by Russia against Ukraine.
Russian Leonid Volkov, chief of staff of Vladimir Putin’s opponent Alexei Navalny, presented to the press a list of 5,825 Russian personalities in 16 categories - propagandists, bankers, civil servants, celebrities... - who, according to the Foundation, facilitate the Russian war in Ukraine.
“It is important to really target Putin. Sanctioning the oligarchs is not enough”, explained Mr Volkov. “They are guilty, they have to be punished, it is a question of morality. For many of them, their future with Putin is not so obvious”, he continued.
The idea is therefore to force these people to “make a choice between being on a list of criminals or not”. “Some have already stopped supporting Putin's regime and left the country”, he said.
The Renew Europe group, which supports this approach, endorsed further sanctions against Russia. “From the beginning, we have said that sanctions have to be bold, serious and have consequences. [...] It is good to sanction the oligarchs, but we need to tackle the backbone of the regime”, pleaded the Belgian MEP, Guy Verhofstadt.
For the Spaniard, Luis Garicano, the urgent need is to help Ukraine with its budget. He called for the suspension of Ukrainian debt servicing and the issuance of EU-issued Ukrainian war bonds.
He also mentioned the possibility of using the European ‘Magnitsky Act’, which allows for the punishment of human rights offenders (see EUROPE 12617/2).
The Lithuanian, Petras Auštrevičius, for his part, called for the creation of a “list of shame” that would contain the names of Europeans who facilitate the war in Ukraine.
To see the list compiled by the Anti-Corruption Foundation: https://aeur.eu/f/1hf (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)