STA, 21 June 2022 - The Slovenian Foreign Ministry told the STA on Tuesday it had no information of assets of any Russian citizen under the EU sanctions being frozen in Slovenia since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
The ministry is in charge of implementing the law on restrictions Slovenia introduces in line with legal acts and decisions adopted by international organisations.
The changes to the law were passed in March and entered into force in April under the previous government.
At the time, the then Foreign Minister Anže Logar assessed that the new legislation significantly empowered the government in the process of implementing sanctions.
The legislation gives institutions such as the Financial Administration (FURS) and the Surveying and Mapping Authority the needed powers, he said.
If a person or company from the EU sanctions list had a piece of property in Slovenia, these institutions would put a seal on it.
The STA turned to FURS with a query, but the revenue service referred it to the Foreign Ministry, arguing the ministry is in charge of collecting the data about the action taken in this respect by FURS, banks, fund managers, insurance companies or the stock exchange operator.
These institutions must check if the Russians on the EU sanctions list have any property, bank account, money invested in funds, a share in a company or a boat in Slovenia.
In March, Logar did not have the information on how many assets Russians had in Slovenia that should be frozen.
He said, however, that once the ministry got the first information from FURS, he saw no problem in making it public.
As a result of the EU sanctions against the Kremlin due to the aggression on Ukraine, EUR 12.5 billion worth of assets of Russian oligarchs and related companies in the EU have been frozen. This is almost double the 6.7 billion reported in April. The latest figures cover luxury yachts, real estate, helicopters and works of art, but not the frozen assets of the Russian central bank.
