“European money continues to flow to Russia”: Tomac asks the EU to investigate the companies that “finance Putin’s absurd war”

Eugen Tomac draws attention to the fact that there are 13 packages of European sanctions against Moscow, but “European money continues to flow to Russia”. The leader of the PMP announces, on Tuesday, that he has requested the European Commission to open an investigation regarding these irregularities and to act in such a way that the EU sanctions “really reach their objective”.

Eugen Tomac claims that the mechanism for imposing these sanctions must be improved and that it is inadmissible to continue allowing European companies and entities to finance Putin’s absurd war.

“We have 13 packages of European sanctions against Moscow, but European money continues to flow to Russia. Raiffeisen Bank International, UniCredit, ING, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo and OTP are the banks that can teach masterclasses on evading the implementation of sanctions. Their profits speak for themselves. In 2023, these banks reported a combined profit of more than 3 billion euros, three times higher than in 2021 and was generated in part by the funds that the banks cannot withdraw from Russia – as an analysis by Financial shows Times”, writes Tomac on Facebook.

According to him, “the problem is that all these recorded profits led to the payment of approximately 800 million euros in taxes to Russia, a significant increase from the 200 million euros recorded in 2021.”

“Following the international sanctions imposed on Russian banks, such as the impossibility of receiving and sending Swift payments, these foreign banks represented a breath of fresh air for the Russians, as these restrictions did not apply to them. And this is how we understand how European companies remaining in Russia help the Kremlin to maintain financial stability despite Western sanctions and practically subsidize Putin’s war machine”, says Eugen Tomac.

The PMP leader wonders “why there are still entities exempted from the implementation of sanctions in the conditions in which the European Commission appointed David O’Sullivan as a special international envoy for the implementation of EU sanctions?”

“It is obvious that the mechanism for imposing these sanctions must be improved. It is unacceptable to continue to allow European companies and entities to finance Putin’s absurd war. We requested the European Commission to open an investigation regarding these irregularities and to act in such a way that the EU sanctions actually reach their objective”, says Eugen Tomac.

Publisher: MI

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