The Conference “Effective Sanctions Implementation and Enhanced Cross-Border Cooperation in EU Members – Outputs and Aspects for Future Consideration”, organised by the Council of Europe’s Economic Crime and Cooperation Division, in cooperation with the European Commission’s Secretariat-General, Structural Reform and Investment Task Force (SG REFORM), provided an overview of the main findings and recommendations and charted potential steps towards further enhancing the effectiveness of EU sanctions against Russia.

The Conference brought together over 140 participants, with representatives of the National Competent Authorities (NCAs) from 24 EU Member States, including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, SG REFORM, DG FISMA and DG JUST of the European Commission, Europol, Eurojust, as well as the Council of Europe experts.

In her opening remarks, Ms Hanne JUNCHER, Director of the Directorate of Security, Integrity, and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe, highlighted the significant progress made since the project’s launch in September 2023. She emphasised the support the Council of Europe is providing to Ukraine, and importance of effective sanctions’ implementation and measures to tackle evasion as critical to weakening Russia’s ability to finance its war of aggression against Ukraine.

Ms Judit RÓZSA, Director responsible for the Technical Support Instrument, Reform and Investment Task Force (SG REFORM) of the European Commission stressed in her opening speech that sanctions are a part of the EU response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, preventing Russia’s access to targeted financial and technological means to fuel its war and aiming at ending the conflict. They need to be implemented uniformly and effectively, with the NCAs being encouraged to be agile in implementing sanctions and combating sanctions evasion .

Participants benefitted from presentations delivered by the Council of Europe experts on the main deliverables of the Project, such as the analysis of the NCA’s operational frameworks in relation to the freezing of assets, review of cross-border and national sharing of and access to information, research on practices and powers of the NCAs related to the freezing of assets with underlying case law, as well as on the review of the NCAs’ procedures in examination of queries posed by EU business operators. All sessions were followed by discussions on good practices, challenges and recommendations for further improvement. Furthermore, the Council of Europe experts presented several practical guidelines developed to support European NCAs in their everyday work, such as the tool on establishing ownership and control of legal entities and arrangements in the context of sanctions restrictions, open-source intelligence (OSINT) tool for sanctions implementation, guideline on preventing misuse of trade-based financial activities to circumvent sanction restrictions and a guidance tool on engagement with business operators.

Europol supported the Conference by nominating an expert to present the work and current activities of the Target Group on Sanctions and by inviting the NCAs to further engage with the Target Group.

Finally, European Commission presented current initiatives to support EU Member States in implementation of EU sanctions and delivered dedicated sessions on the interconnection between the new EU AML package (2024) and the EU sanctions, status of transposition of Directive (EU) 2024/1226 on criminalising violation of Union restrictive measures, as well as on the new TSI projects and initiatives in the area of the sanctions implementation.

The participants took note of the project’s achievements and outputs, some of them stating that the recommendations provided by project have already been taken into account in introducing some legislative and structural changes aiming to further enhance the effectiveness of the EU sanctions implementation.

The event was organised within the framework of the Technical Support Instrument initiative “Effective implementation of the sanctions regime and enhanced cross-border cooperation in EU Member States”, co-funded by the European Commission’s Secretariat-General, Structural Reform and Investment Task Force and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.