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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The Court of the European Union has canceled sanctions against Azarov and members of his government
On Thursday, the EU Court, located in Luxembourg, issued a decision in the consolidated case Mykola Azarov and Oleksiy Azarov v. European Council, as well as in the cases of Serhiy Arbazov and Eduard Stavitsky
Euromedia has the text of the ruling released by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The court found that officials cannot be subjected to sanctions merely because a preliminary investigation into their actions has been started in a third country.
As a result, all assets of these individuals frozen in the EU must be "unblocked".
Moreover, this decision calls into question all sanctions against Ukrainian officials.
The court’s decision is not final – the party that lost may appeal it.
It should be noted that legally the EU Court’s ruling does not mean an immediate lifting of asset freezes. This is tied to the specifics of the sanctions mechanism: the Council of the EU adopts new sanctions each year, which must be challenged anew each time. Thus, on Thursday only the asset freeze that has been in effect since March 2014 to March 2015 year was canceled.
Currently, (through 5 March 2016 year inclusive) the Council of the EU’s following decision remains under consideration by the Luxembourg court.
Formally, the EU Council could also extend for the next year a new round of sanctions despite the court’s ruling, but such actions could carry political consequences for EU member states and their relations with the EU Judiciary.
eurointegration.com.ua
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "СУД ЄС СКАСУВАВ САНКЦІЇ ПРОТИ АЗАРОВА ТА ЧЛЕНІВ ЙОГО УРЯДУ". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
