The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled not to annul restrictive measures against former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, the Ukrainian media outlet Yevropeiska Pravda has reported, referring to a respective court ruling.
In his claim, Azarov was challenging the restrictive measures introduced by the Council of the European Union in 2016.
“Azarov’s defense insisted that by imposing the sanctions, there were infringements of basic rights, namely the right to property and the infringement of the freedom to conduct a business, the infringement of the right to a careful investigation. Moreover, the former prime minister was sanctioned on the basis of manifest errors of assessment,” it said.
By its ruling, the court refused to exclude Azarov from the EU sanctions list and ordered the ex-prime minister to cover his own legal costs and expenses of the Council of the EU.
As was reported, the EU on March 5, 2014, slapped sanctions against 18 former senior officials of Ukraine in the form of the assets freeze.
The sanctions were later prolonged on an annual basis, although their cancellation was under discussion because of the absence of criminal proceedings against some of the individuals in Ukraine.
On March 5, 2018, the Council of the EU extended the asset freezes for another year, until March 6, 2019, for 13 persons identified as “responsible for the misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds or for the abuse of office causing a loss to Ukrainian public funds.”
The official announcement of the extension said that the restrictive measures against two persons were not extended. According to media reports, ex-Justice Minister of Ukraine Olena Lukash and MP Serhiy Kliuyev were removed from the list.
The sanctions list includes, among others, former President Viktor Yanukovych, former Prime Minister Azarov, former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka and his son Artem Pshonka, former presidential chief of staff Andriy Kliuyev, former Deputy Interior Minister Viktor Ratushniak, former Minister of Income and Taxes Oleksandr Klymenko, former Minister of Energy Eduard Stavytsky, former Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk, and oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko.
