Bloomberg learned about the EU plan to increase pressure on the families of oligarchs from Russia

The EU will lay out the criteria and legal framework that will allow the application of sanctionsto family members of a particular person,notes the agency

The European Union intends to create a more detailed legal framework for pressure on family members of Russian billionaires who fell under sanctions, Bloomberg writes, citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to them, the European External Affairs Service informed the EU member states on March 15 that it would soon present a relevant law.

Expanded criteria have been proposed by Estonia and a number of other countries in response to concerns that sanctioned individuals may transfer money and assets in circumvention of sanctions.

The Estonian proposal found support after the March 8 EU court annulled sanctions against Violetta Prigozhina, the mother of the founder of PMC Wagner, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, the agency notes.

Then the court found that she had not owned the Concord Management and Consulting company since 2017, as Brussels believed, and family ties were not sufficient grounds for inclusion in the sanctions list. Despite the court decision, she was returned to the EU sanctions list on March 13.

According to the sources, the EU is seeking to build a “very strong evidence base” indicating that some family members receive “unjustified benefits from sanctioned oligarchs” and can help them circumvent sanctions.

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According to Bloomberg, the criteria and legal framework that will allow sanctions to be applied to family members of a particular person will be set out later.

The fight against sanctions circumvention has become a priority for the EU after the imposition of 10 packages of sanctions against Russia and the freezing of assets of more than 1.5 thousand individuals and organizations. The European Commission also plans to propose new laws to close additional loopholes.

Earlier, Bloomberg wrote that EU officials believe that there are significantly more assets of Russian billionaires subject to sanctions than have been discovered at the moment, but the authorities of the association cannot find them and freeze them.

At the moment, the bloc has frozen Russian assets worth €20.9 billion. At the same time, in 2019, the volume of Russian foreign direct investment in the EU was estimated at €136 billion. The agency noted that assets are often hidden behind complex structures of companies or intermediaries.

EU officials consider the main problems that hinder the establishment of an apparatus for enforcement of the sanctions regime:

lack of timely updates of information from the governments of participating countries; refusal to extend restrictions to family members and partners of sanctioned individuals who could potentially help protect or redistribute assets.