The EU raises the issue of anti-Ukrainian sanctions
The European Union should introduce personal sanctions against judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine who abolished criminal liability for failure to submit or false data in declarations, but not cancel the general visa-free regime.
Viola von Cramon, deputy head of the European Parliament delegation for Association with Ukraine, stated this on the air of the German TV channel DW, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“After this decision of the Constitutional Court, do you see a real threat, risk or possibility that the EU will actually launch a visa-free suspension?” asked the presenter.
“Actually, that’s how it should be. But none of us - neither the European Commission, nor the European External Action Service, nor we in the European Parliament - no one wants to punish ordinary people who do not have diplomatic passports for what corrupt judges have done. You need to be careful here, but this is playing with fire, no doubt about it.
Now the Ukrainian government and parliament must correct these deviations committed by the Constitutional Court. Of course, on the issue of visa liberalization, we are talking about saving the successes of reforms and the implemented anti-corruption measures. We can consider other means, such as sanctions against the relevant judges of the Constitutional Court or other people who benefit from visa liberalization but are concerned that the visa-free regime is under threat. Maybe ban them from entering instead of applying this to all people in Ukraine,” Cramon replied.
She was supported by the permanent rapporteur of the European Parliament on Ukraine, Michael Gahler, who emphasized that the abolition of visa-free travel “will play into the hands of the Kremlin.”
“In the end, I see it the same way - it would be a mistake if we affected the entire population with this. This would, first of all, please the Kremlin: “Look, you can visit us without visas,” Geler said.
Kramon, in turn, proposed imposing sanctions against the leader of the Opposition for Life, Viktor Medvedchuk, who, in her opinion, is to blame for the political crisis in Ukraine.
“And if we know that, for example, Mr. Medvedchuk has 44 enterprises registered in Cyprus, then we could think about freezing his assets. That is, those who actually provoked this crisis need to be made responsible, and not the entire population - this is our approach,” Cramon said.
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