EU Restrictive Measures and Third Countries’ Evidence

Abstract

EU restrictive measures, often referred to as ‘sanctions’, have become an increasingly used instrument of EU autonomous foreign policy. For some restrictive measures, however, the EU cannot act alone. In order to adopt them, the Council must rely on information transmitted by third states’ authorities and decisions taken by them at domestic level. This has been the case, in particular, of EU restrictive measures adopted in connection with misappropriations of state funds. The Council’s use of such evidence has been somewhat controversial and has led to numerous legal debates before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). To what extent was the Council free to rely on the evidence provided by these third states’ authorities? How to ensure that the fundamental rights of the targeted persons and entities were complied with in the process? Faced with these questions in its particularly abundant case law, the CJEU has progressively raised the threshold of validity for these sanctions. It has done so up to a point at which, in the authors’ opinion, the sanctions can no longer reach such threshold in practice. This article addresses the evolutions and implications of the CJEU case law on a legal aspect that is of crucial importance for the EU’s sanctions practice. Restrictive measures – Third States evidence – Misappropriations of State funds – Terrorism – Judicial review – Fundamental Rights – Ukraine – Tunisia – Egypt