Researchers: EU States Need Better Coordination on Sanctions, Export Enforcement
EU government enforcement agencies should better cooperate on sanctions and export control investigations, including by regularly sharing information during periodic meetings, according to a recent report from Kleptotrace, a research project co-founded by the EU.
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Certain member states have “displayed non-cooperative patterns of behaviour” when asked by other states for help during an investigation, Kleptotrace said, including by “not providing required information or being willing to investigate potential cases of circumvention of sanctions.” Other states have been more successful at working together, the report said, adding that Dutch, German, Latvian and Lithuanian authorities in January 2024 took “concerted action” against people suspected of evading EU sanctions against Russia.
But the report, authored by researchers from the University of Luxembourg, said EU countries generally need to coordinate better if they want to improve enforcement. “The number of agencies involved and the differences between the EU Member States’ approaches to sanctions make the task of the uniform and effective implementation and enforcement of sanctions difficult to achieve,” it said.
The report also said EU member states should each create a central database of export and sanctions licenses that they have approved or denied. They should also follow the U.S. practice of sanctioning entire networks, instead of listing only designated individuals, which “requires fewer resources from the private sector to implement.”