The Political Price of EU Sanctions: How Oligarchs Bypass the Courts

For years, Usmanov and Fridman mounted expensive legal campaigns to challenge the freezing of their assets and travel bans. Their efforts in the EU General Court largely faltered, as the bloc’s council repeatedly updated evidence to justify maintaining the restrictions. However, the legal landscape shifted when France and Luxembourg made their support for the broader sanctions renewal contingent on the removal of these two specific individuals. France sought to secure the release of French nationals held in Azerbaijan, while Luxembourg aimed to neutralize Fridman’s massive 15-billion-euro claim against its frozen assets.

This outcome highlights a growing vulnerability in the EU’s sanctions architecture. While the legal process requires proof of an assessment error to succeed, political horse-trading operates outside these evidentiary standards. Critics, including Tom Keatinge of the Royal United Services Institute, warn that using sanctions as bargaining chips creates a dangerous precedent that undermines the bloc's security. To mitigate further instability, the Council agreed to lock sanctions for a three-year period until 2029, a move intended to insulate the regime from future domestic political shifts in member states. While the Baltics have responded by imposing national sanctions on the pair, the EU has signaled it has no immediate plans to reinstate them, leaving the door open for other influential figures to bypass the courtroom in favor of diplomatic concessions.