Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner wants to counter deficits in the enforcement of EU sanctions against Russian companies and oligarchs with changes to the law. The FDP politician announced on Monday that he wanted to make a proposal in a relatively short time. This is not criticism of the authorities, clarified the FDP politician, whose house, together with the Federal Ministry of Economics, leads a federal government task force to enforce the punitive measures. However, there are legal obstacles, for example in the exchange of information between authorities with different competencies and regulatory gaps that should be closed. Lindner emphasized that successes had been achieved in cooperation between customs and other authorities.
It was thus possible to locate the beneficial owner behind a yacht in Hamburg and add them to the sanctions lists. The authorities could also have prevented a Boeing aircraft from taking off at Frankfurt Airport after Russian businessmen were identified as the owners. The actual ownership structures are often obscured by opaque company networks in which offshore companies are also involved. The tracking of assets must be improved in order to be able to effectively enforce sanctions, said Lindner. In addition to short-term changes, he is therefore striving to fundamentally revise the legislation in a second step and to strengthen the systematic cooperation between government agencies.