Sanctions Enforcement in the EU: 2024 Milestones & What to Expect in 2025

While the EU has long been viewed as less active in sanctions enforcement compared to other global actors, such as the US, recent developments indicate a significant increase in enforcement activity. The year 2024 marked a remarkable shift – with sanctions and export controls enforcement activity reaching unprecedented levels. As the Ukraine war nears its three-year mark, the EU (especially under the new Commission and Polish Council presidency) is now signalling its commitment to implement “stronger sanctions”, close loopholes and ensure that its restrictive measures, particularly against Russia, are taken seriously enough. 

2024: An EU Sanctions Turning Point?

Before looking ahead to what 2025 will bring, it is worth to reflect and recap the sanctions enforcement landscape in EU Member States in 2024 and how legal obligations were expanded over the last year, stepping up efforts to close compliance gaps.

For example, since (the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in) 2022, German authorities have launched over 1,400 investigations into suspected sanctions violations related to Russia and Belarus, with at least 176 cases still open in 2024. Similarly, Dutch authorities have pursued multiple enforcement actions, reflecting a broader EU-wide push to punish sanctions breaches.

Throughout 2024, the EU not only increased enforcement actions but also introduced new legal tools to address enforcement gaps. 

• Best-efforts obligation for EU operators with subsidiaries outside the EU: A notable development is the new “best efforts” obligation, which extends EU sanctions compliance responsibilities beyond the EU. EU parent companies must now ensure that their non-EU subsidiaries do not undermine EU-Russia trade sanctions and EU-Belarus sanctions. The EU clarified that best efforts should include “the implementation of appropriate policies, controls and procedures” while at the same time best efforts should be understood as “comprising only actions that are feasible for the Union operator in view of its nature, its size and the relevant factual circumstances”. This represents a significant legal shift, effectively exporting elements of EU sanctions law globally.
• Awareness of sanctions circumvention sufficient for breach: At the same time, the EU has broadened its EU-Russia and EU-Belarus circumvention prohibition. While the circumvention prohibition previously required actual knowledge and circumvention intent, the mere awareness of potential circumvention would now already be a breach of sanctions. This subtle yet impactful change underscores the EU’s focus on addressing indirect breaches of its sanctions regimes and facilitating enforcement.
• Appropriate due diligence required: The EU also clarified that EU operators must conduct “appropriate” due diligence to be granted protection against liability (i.e. to prove that they had no reasonable cause to suspect that their actions would breach EU sanctions). 

Challenges: Decentralised Enforcement and Diverging Approaches

Despite these strides, the EU sanctions enforcement framework remains decentralised. While the EU centrally imposes sanctions that directly apply in all EU Member States, sanctions enforcement is managed by the national competent authorities of each individual Member State. This has partially led to inconsistent enforcement across the EU:

• Varying enforcement practices: Some countries, such as Germany, have dedicated resources and institutions to enforce sanctions, while others face resource constraints or differing political priorities, resulting in enforcement gaps.
• Divergent interpretations: Member States also sometimes apply and interpret sanctions differently, leading to legal uncertainty. For instance, the same entity may be regarded as “owned” or “controlled” by sanctioned persons, and thus sanctioned, in one Member State but not in another.
• Transparency concerns: The limited availability of published decisions on sanctions breaches, coupled with the absence of a central EU platform, creates uncertainty about what constitutes an “effective, proportionate, and dissuasive” penalty as required by EU-sanctions.

These disparities risk undermining the effectiveness of EU sanctions, creating opportunities for evasion.

Looking Ahead: 2025 and Beyond

The EU has recognised some of these challenges and is taking steps to address them. 

An interesting space to watch will be the implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/1126, which requires Member States to partly harmonise their sanctions enforcement laws by May 2025. This includes:

• Criminalising certain sanctions violations, as well as inciting, aiding or abetting violations.
• Setting central minimum penalty thresholds (5 % of the total worldwide turnover of the legal person or EUR 40 million) to be implemented in each Member State. 
• Strengthening cross-border cooperation between competent authorities of Member States, the Commission, Europol, Eurojust and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).

The Directive lays the groundwork for more uniform enforcement across the EU, but its success will, inter alia, hinge on Member States’ timely implementation.

Conclusion: Compliance as a Key Requirement

The EU’s increased enforcement efforts throughout 2024 highlight its commitment to ensure sanctions are not just symbolic but impactful. This trend will certainly continue in 2025. For example, while Estonia initiated a total of 71 trade-related criminal cases in 2024 for sanctions violations, there have already been 12 cases in the first month of 2025.  

Throughout 2025, businesses should keep sanctions compliance firmly on their agenda. With measures like the “best efforts” obligation and enhanced circumvention rules, the EU is sending a clear message: sanctions enforcement is here to stay, and the risk of non-compliance is higher than ever. 

For businesses with an EU nexus, staying ahead of these developments implementing sanctions compliance measures and conducting appropriate due diligence while monitoring enforcement trends will be critical in navigating an increasingly complex sanctions landscape.

Our EU sanctions team continues to monitor sanctions developments and is happy to support. Please reach out if you would like to discuss any of the topics discussed in this blog.