The EU Council has decided to introduce humanitarian exemptions into 10 autonomous EU sanctions regimes so as to not hamper the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The decision was adopted without debate on Monday 27 November.
The sanctions frameworks amended in this way are asset freeze regimes established in view of the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi, Guinea, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Tunisia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe and in relation to cyber attacks.
Thanks to these humanitarian exemptions, UN agencies as well as organisations and agencies certified as humanitarian partners of the EU or its Member States and specialised agencies of the Member States can carry out transactions with persons and entities on the list without prior authorisation.
This decision strengthens the coherence between the EU’s restrictive measures regimes and those adopted at the level of the United Nations or by other international partners, in order to safeguard principled humanitarian action carried out by impartial humanitarian actors.
It “sends a strong signal to both humanitarian and economic operators, as well as those in need of humanitarian aid: EU sanctions do not stand in the way of delivering humanitarian assistance”, underlines the EU Council in a press release.
The EU Council also decided that the humanitarian exemptions provided for in these ten regimes, as well as in certain other EU restrictive measures regimes, will be regularly reassessed in order to evaluate their relevance and, if necessary, to adapt them in the future.
In March, in application of UN Security Council Resolution 2664 (2022), the EU had already introduced a humanitarian exemption in mixed UN/EU sanctions regimes in which EU measures complement sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council (see EUROPE 13154/12). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)