Sanctions within the European Union

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the practice of sanctions within the EU. Two groups of sanctions are identified — traditional ones, related to the country’s infringement of the main fiscal rules in the Economic and Monetary Union, and relatively new ones, related to non-compliance with the basic principles of the EU. This article’s attention is focused on the second group of measures, previously not studied in detail in the Russian scientific literature, which are aimed at resolving internal contradictions in the EU — between supranational structures and new Eastern European EU members. These are measures of financial nature in the form of freezing the EU funds payouts, although other measures are also envisaged. For these purposes, the conditionality mechanism has been fixed in 2020, providing for the dependence of payments from the EU funds on the respect of European norms and compliance with EU fundamental values. The ability to avoid blocking at the EU level decisions on sanctions against the violating country is also provided for. As a last resort, a sanction is fixed in the form of depriving the country of the voting rights in the EU Council. We conclude that it is possible to resolve problems without adoption of tough financial measures, by political will and by the institutional mechanisms for settling disagreements.