Should the EU sanction Roman Abramovich? The billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club is included at the top of a list of individuals put together by detained Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is urging the EU to implement targeted sanctions against key figures close to Vladimir Putin.
Navalny may have published his list in part because Europe has a new tool in its sanctions toolbox. On 7 December 2020, the EU passed the so-called European Magnitsky Act (modelled after a similar act in the US), which enables the bloc to “freeze assets and impose travel bans on individuals involved in serious human rights abuses”.
Should Europe sanction individuals close to the Kremlin? Alaxei Navalny, an outspoken critic of Putin, has been sent to a penal colony for two and a half years for missing parole meetings while recovering in a Berlin hospital from a poisoning attempt. Following his arrest and the release of a documentary accusing Putin of corruption, Russia has been rocked by some of the biggest mass protests since 2012. Navalny is now calling on Western governments to sanction “key enablers and beneficiaries of Russian kleptocracy, with significant ties / assets in the West”.
Should the EU impose new sanctions against Russia? Is it time to use the recently approved “European Magnitsky Act” and implement targeted sanctions against Putin’s top cronies? Should the EU sanction Roman Abramovich? Let us know your thoughts and comments in the form below and we’ll take them to policymakers and experts for their reactions!
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Mirror, mirror on the wall who are the biggest Corruptors and Corrupted of them all?
Why select Russia? What about diplomacy? Mr. Putin is just one of many corrupt political rascals, “skelms or Schelms”!
https://www.iwm.at/transit-online/putins-self-destruction/
He shares this dark and dubious reputation with other corrupt top politicians, some “honorable in parliaments”, the blatant dishonorable, the moral & ethic bankrupt, the ruthless dictators, some unashamed Royals & Nobles, some greedy Bankers & flamboyant businesspeople & some supra wealthy individuals- even the poor ex freedom fighters (like the ex “uMkhonto we Sizwe” in SA)- wielding absolute but corrupt “democrat power” nowadays.
It forms a network of a border-free global Oligarchy! They hide, deflect & defend their dishonesty by all means, until death & thereafter- using instruments like “Trusts & Foundations” etc.
Who else needs all these secretive & impenetrable Tax Havens? The middle & higher income earners- being ordinary folks? Who is determined & willing to touch & abolish these havens of the elites? Nobody- shame!
Investigative journalism has done a very good job by revealing enough credible evidence- e.g.: contained in all these revelations below:
The “Hongkong Shangai Bank”- HSBC money laundering scandal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Money_laundering
or the “Bahama Leaks” ……https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamas_Leaks
or the Mauritius Leaks …… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritius_Leaks
or the Paradies Papers……https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers
or he Swiss Leaks………….. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Leaks
or the FinCEN files……… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinCEN_Files
or the “The Panama Papers”:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318038923_Why_did_the_Panama_Papers_not_shatter_the_world_The_relationship_between_Journalism_and_Corruption
https://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/57161f07a1bb8d3c3495bc36/
Should the EU be serious about “equality” & political ethics- I wonder why is there so little action?
There is a “United Nations Convention against Corruption” (UNCAC): https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CAC/
And the EU’s counterpart: “The EU Convention against corruption”
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_2416
Was anybody convicted & sentenced yet by the UN or the EU?
Which countries are the global “champions”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
Help for some who may be struggling to open the links of the Bahama leaks & Paradise Papers:
*the underlined links can be directly (left) clicked on (the finger appears)
* the not underlined links need to be highlighted & a right-mouse-click allows to select “Open Link”.
I seem to find myself in agreement with the romantic rethoric of the rightwinger above me.
Conservatism has adopted a beautiful emancipatory discourse against the elites of this world, corrupt leaders and crooked businessman.
They also indulge themselves in their own echo-chambers, whereby the prefabricated communication agenda that stemmed from the deep entrails of the Internet (namely 4chan) was brought into the mainstream by Steve Bannon, Brexit and Trump 2016.
The enemy? George Soros, the “globalists”, “deep state”, the feminists, the progressive open borders, gays, blacks, communists and beta males.
Some even take it further and romanticise the non-existent state of Rhodesia despite never even lived there and/or partake in the positive portrayal of right-wing authoritarian regimes, because they fought the socialist threat and promote traditional conservative values.
That is why the commentator above me criticises the EU, for being a progressivist sellout while Putin upholds the righteous crusade against the leftist Enemy.
But I agree with him nonetheless, not in the sense of defending the Apartheid and immigration control, but rather in the matter of the EU becoming a bureaucratic shithole, with the perpetuation, since the Cold War, of a decadent, unnecessary animosity with our Eastern neighbours; with the arrogance of superiority that defines the classical Western identitarian imperialism. NATO is useless and the US is not to say who we are to be enemies with.
Sanctions only feed the Russian propaganda machine that we Westerners are against them by all means. We give them reasons to despise us. Of course Putin is an authoritarian bastard, but the Russian people are already putting their lives and their bodies at risk to denounce the mistreatment and abuse that their country’s authority is able to inflict upon them.
As an international organisation the EU should denounce these behaviours but by no means it is in right to directly intervene in the situation to gain something for them. EU only sanctions when it favours their interests, because there is a self-perpetuated animosity with Russia, but instead it claims to do so from a mere moral and ethical point of view. I can’t stand this pretentiousness, this image of crusaders that the EU tries to convey to the world. EU shuts up and looks the other way when Saudi Arabian women are beaten and raped in a dark prison cell.
No, we should not focus on sanctioning anyone, but rather in making our own institutions resemble the image that we try to project to the world.
Greetings from a perceived romantic right-winger!
What I learned about left-right confusion was to look at your hands. Left was always where your thumb pointed on your right hand & vice versa! That is how I overcome political & historical dyslexia.
It gets even better- I also suffer from protanopia and deuteranopia.
That taught me to be wary of the type of political and W. Hearst’s yellow journalism and rather believe in civic & investigative journalism.
Everyone chooses that or another (echo)-chamber. To find true facts and wipe away all mischievous fog is what’s important.
Relax, I am no competition & will never be in line for the Pulitzer Prize!
Enjoy life in Barcelona & keep well!
EU should impose sanctions on Germany, for their participation in a charade, of a washed out Russian politician, who drank WMDs and got a hangover, who is sponsored by foreign (USAn) interest with the distinct intention of sabotaging economic projects between EU and Russia.This time being naive and stupid should make Merkel criminally liable, and all EU politicians, supporting this charade, should be investigated for committing treason.
Dont think the sanctions will work try negotiating Putin and the boys wont suffer with sanctions the average and poor Russians will.
EU should impose sanctions on Germany, for their participation in a charade, of a washed out Russian politician, who drank WMDs and got a hangover, who is sponsored by foreign (USAn) interest with the distinct intention of sabotaging economic projects between EU and Russia.This time being naive and stupid should make Merkel criminally liable, and all EU politicians, supporting this charade, should be investigated for committing treason.
George Thomson nothing else to say, case closed.
George Thomson someone is buying into russian propaganda.
Dont think the sanctions will work try negotiating Putin and the boys wont suffer with sanctions the average and poor Russians will.
Why impose sactions against a country who is not an EU member state, has close ties with EU member states and provides resources which EU member states are dependent upon, over an internal affair?
Should the EU impose new sanctions against Russia?
Why? What is it Russia does that others do not?
How about the EU and the West start revealing what it is they want from the rest of the world? Give us all a break. And once they have the courage to inform us all, why not ask for our collective consent to carry out their projects above board?
The pandemic and dying of EU citizens and a Russian politician, who is more important? When a great power wants to kill his political enemy, he would not be so stupid to use his own pistol, and more importantly, would never let him escape…this is just by common sense. How come people lost even their common sense when talking about Russia?
Should the EU start dealing first with internal repression problems before any attempts for social suggestions to non-EU countries?
Yes, public officers and political leaders are paid for good governance in EU. We should not intervene into sovereign and independent nations for intervention need.
The cycle just continues on both sides:
Should left the room long ago
Would is hiding
Could is non existent at this point in time.
The EU is no ‘choirboy’ and its doubtful Russia even takes them seriously, if they did they would slap their fist on the table and watch leaders scatter
External intervention to change the structural power of an independent country is a crime which is against the UN Charters. It is only the people of that particular country have the say. When people call for intervention of foreign government, which means they do not have sufficient national support and they are the minority. How many wars the US/NATO have been waging on humanitarian grounds? How many of these war can really create peace and well beings of the people? How many public revenue that goes to military intervention of foreign countries while well beings and benefits of EU citizens are being ignored? Why people are panicking on the decline of Europe?
How EU is going to sanction the US? The US has supported Japan’s discharge of nuclear polluted water into the Pacific Ocean and currently transfer nuclear technology to Australia, a non-nuclear country. When the US is forcing EU to sanction Iran on the Iran Nuclear Deal, the US is proliferating nuclear in the Pacific Ocean, causing nuclear threat to East Asian countries and helping to pollute the Ocean.