Supervisory Commission criticizes implementation of Russia sanctions
Published: Thursday, Nov 16th 2023, 11:40
Retour au fil d'actualité
The federal government should monitor the implementation of economic sanctions more closely in future. This is what the Control Committee of the Council of States (CPC-S) is calling for after analyzing the Russia sanctions, among other things. It has made six recommendations to the Federal Council.
In its report published on Thursday, the parliamentary oversight committee states that the Federal Council appropriately adopted the EU's economic sanctions in connection with the war in Ukraine. In view of the necessary prior balancing of interests and the necessary adaptation of the sanctions to Swiss law, the CPC-S is of the opinion that a quicker adoption would not have been possible.
Overall, the Confederation has improved the data basis for the application of economic sanctions in recent years, writes the Commission. The movement of goods is being monitored more closely by both the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Federal Office for Customs and Border Protection (FOCP).
"Cantons not aware of their role"
However, the Commission is more critical of how the implementation of the Russia sanctions was monitored and supervised in this specific case. In the opinion of the GPK-S, the federal authorities clarified the ambiguities of the cantons regarding the implementation of the Russia sanctions too late. "Several cantons were not aware of their role in the initial phase." Certain legal provisions were unclear to them before clarification by the federal government.
The Commission also regrets that the assets of the natural persons and legal entities affected by the sanctions could not be monitored more closely in the first few months after the sanctions were imposed due to insufficient resources at Seco. According to the GPK-S report, only 0.7 full-time equivalents were earmarked for the implementation of measures relating to Russia/Ukraine before the crisis.
The relationship between the duty of lawyers to report and criminal law provisions on professional secrecy is also unclear. The GPK-S therefore invites the Federal Council to carry out the necessary legal clarifications and, if necessary, clarifications.
Becoming more flexible in crises
The CPC-S also asks the Federal Council to review the appropriateness of the Confederation's crisis concept and thereby ensure that Seco can react more flexibly in times of crisis. In the opinion of the GPK-S, Seco also needs a better overview of changes to the land register in connection with sanctioned persons in order to be able to intervene more frequently in the event of violations of sanctions.
As the Confederation is adopting the list of persons sanctioned by the EU unchanged, the CPC-S believes that measures to guarantee the rule of law must also be examined. The Federal Council should therefore examine how the factual justification and legality of this list can be improved.
The Supervisory Commission also calls on the Federal Council to take a closer look at the legal basis for the enforcement of international sanctions with a view to defining the role of the cantons more clearly. With regard to the role of the cantonal supervisory authorities over the land register in the implementation of economic sanctions, the Commission also identifies a need for examination.
No one-to-one takeover
The Federal Council has until mid-February to comment on the findings and recommendations. Following critical votes, it has already announced that it will increase the frequency of inspections in future in order to improve the effectiveness of the sanctions.
After Russia attacked Ukraine militarily, the Federal Council decided at the end of February 2022 to adopt the EU's sanctions against Russia and thus strengthen their effect. The legal basis for this is the Embargo Act. This stipulates that the federal government can take coercive measures to enforce sanctions imposed by the UN, the OSCE or the EU.
As the legal terminology, concepts and responsibilities in Switzerland are different to those in the EU, EU decisions cannot be adopted unchanged, but must be analyzed and adapted to the Swiss legal system. In addition, Switzerland must take into account both the law of neutrality and its neutrality policy.
©Keystone/SDA
French 
English 
German 
Spanish 
Arabic