The European Union’s decision to sanction Moldovan and Russian oligarchs by freezing their assets located within the EU will be approved next week, says the Romanian MEP, Vlad Gheorghe. According to the European official, the decision will take effect immediately after publishing in the EU Official Journal, with those targeted being Vlad Plahotniuc, Ilan Shor, Marina Tauber, Gheorghe Cavcaliuc and the Russian businessman Igor Chaika.
According to the Romanian MEP, the decision to impose sanctions on the five politicians and businessmen from Moldova and Russia has been approved, for now, at the level of ambassadors of member states, who are preparing the official EU decision that will be adopted on Wednesday.
“This decision is extremely important both for Moldova and the European Union. We are partners in this endeavor, because Putin’s oligarchs are not only harming Moldovan citizens, but all Europeans. Sanctioning means tracking down all assets, be it money or assets of any other nature, which we will block so that they can no longer use them against Moldovan and European citizens. The officialization of these sanctions already took place, and the formal decision will be issued on Wednesday, just ahead of the Summit that will be held in Moldova on June 1, and later the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union will follow. From then on, the sanctions will begin to produce effects”, said MEP Vlad Gheorghe in an interview with Radio Moldova.
According to the European official, the assets of the sanctioned persons that are in the name of proxies will also be frozen, with their sale to be prohibited.
“There are five people for now, but let me stress that this is only the beginning. These are Shor, Plahotniuc, Tauber, Cavcaliuc and Chaika. But once we have started this mechanism that applies for the first time to those from Moldova, the list can be extended. The first step is to freeze everything that is in the name of those persons, and the second step is to freeze the assets that they don’t own directly, but which formally belong to people who those sanctioned are using in order to hide the origin of their assets.”, said the Romanian MEP.
According to Vlad Gheorghe, the assets to be sanctioned are estimated at several hundred million euros.
