Poland to pass national laws to sanction Russia
Poland will pass laws to prevent coal imports from Russia, as well as the freezing of assets of people and entities that support it
The Polish government announced that it will pass national laws to prevent “coal imports from Russia and freeze the financial assets of individuals and entities that support Russia.”
The information was provided by Piotr Müller, spokesman for the Executive, who stressed that these measures were agreed upon during the Council of Ministers, held on Tuesday, March 29, because in the opinion of the Polish authorities: “We can no longer wait for the decisions of the European Union”.
According to Müller, the proposed measures “will go beyond the EU sanctions, since these “require unanimity from all member states.” However, we are taking measures in Poland with the invocation of a “security clause.”
The Ministry of the Interior will be the entity responsible for drawing up the “list of personalities and entities” that would be impacted by the freezing of their assets. This list will be published in the coming days.
Freezing of financial assets and embargo of coal imports
The Executive spokesman stated that the purpose of the Government is “to take measures that freeze various types of funds, including cash transfers, checks, money orders, deposits, any transaction that may benefit the Russian Federation. “It will also facilitate the freezing of economic resources, both tangible and intangible assets, movable and immovable.”
On the other hand, the Polish government has been facing strong criticism from its political opponents, who consider the government incoherent because the government. On the one hand it promotes the tightening of economic sanctions against Moscow; but on the other hand it continues to import large amounts of coal from that country.
Mateusz Morawiecki, Polish Prime Minister, in the first days of March stated that Poland is “prepared to implement an embargo on Russian coal imports at any time”, noting that up to now it has not been able to execute it because “trade agreements agreement signed by the EU affect Poland.”
It was also recently known that the contract that Poland has with the Russian state gas company Gazprom expires at the end of this year and they have already announced that it will not be renewed.
M. Rodríguez
Source: swissinfo.ch
