Greece and Malta are next in line for confiscations of Russian assets
Greece and Malta are lagging behind other states in the European Union in freezing Russian assets imposed because of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, according to an EU official and an internal document, Reuters reports.
The 27 EU countries have so far reported committing approx 20.3 billion euros of sanctioned Russian assets, with Italy, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria having notified actions totaling one billion euros.
Almost every other EU country has frozen assets worth millions, according to the EU executive committee document seen by Reuters.
In comparison, Greece had only notified the bloc of freezing assets of value 212,000 euros and Malta 147,000 euros. “This is a bit strange,” said the EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Either they don’t have much, or they don’t do their job.
Greece and Malta did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the agency said.
Over 10 months since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the EU currently blacklists approx 1,300 people and 120 entitiesas well as economic sanctions involving trade, transport, energy, banking, media and defence.
The EU’s focus this year is on how and whether to seize frozen Russian assets and spend them on rebuilding Ukraine, an “exercise” that could also put Russian central bank assets at stake in the value of Europe. 300 billion euros.
There is little legal precedent and two member states express major concerns about subsequent lawsuits, while others say using the assets to benefit Ukraine is the right thing to do.
In relation to this, the EU is also working to make circumvention of the main criminal offenses in all Member States, which is not currently the case. The official said the bloc’s top officials should be able to announce progress on those issues when they travel to Kyiv for an EU-Ukraine summit on February 3.