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170 | Zsolt Nagy, Zoltán Simon, Viktor Szép, and Tamás Dezső Ziegler
citizens. And even more importantly, it has also been suggested to establish
a ‘European Office of Foreign Assets Control} an agency similar to OFAC.
The aim would be to merge and create further synergies among different
existing services in the European Commission by placing experts in this
unified structure, which would be composed of officials from different
Commission Directorates-General and the EEAS. Its mandate would be to
manage information on sanctions and the compensation fund, as well as to
assess the legality of any extraterritorial sanction and give legal assistance
before foreign courts (Bébard et al. 2021). Finally, it might also be worth
mentioning that at the 2021 EU-US summit, both sides made a (vague)
commitment to avoid “possible unintended consequences for European and
US interests” in sanctions matters, which can be considered a positive move
(European Council 2021).
Last but not least, another key challenge is Brexit: the decision of the
UK to leave the Union has clearly affected the EU’s sanctions policy. The
UK was a key actor in this policy area given its leadership and expertise, as
well as its active role in initiating several sanctions regimes and proposing
individual designations to sanctions lists (Moret 2016; Moret and Pothier
2018; Portela 2020a). In the case of the rigged Belarus elections in 2020, the
UK - along with Canada - adopted sanctions against the Lukashenka regime
even faster than the EU, whose actions were (once again) delayed due to a
Member State unwilling to compromise. Certainly, Brexit affects the UK
negatively as well, as she can hardly influence the EU’s internal decision¬
making procedures, including with regard to sanctions. There is thus an
increasing risk of cleavages between these two sanctions regimes (Szép and
Van Elsuwege 2020), and a need for cooperation and collaboration for the
sake of avoiding counterproductive actions and tensions.
Key concepts and terms
Extraterritorial sanctions
Free trade (agreements)
Geopolitical interests
Industrial autonomy (security and defence)
Operational autonomy (security and defence)
Political autonomy (security and defence)
Restrictive measures (sanctions)
Strategic autonomy
Strategic sovereignty
Transatlantic partnership