Russian oligarchs have so far, despite the most recent tightening of the law in the spring under no circumstances disclosed their assets in Germany. So far, no corresponding notifications have been received by the Bundesbank or the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control, according to a response from the Federal Ministry of Economics to Left Party MP Christian Görke. The letter was exclusively available to the Reuters news agency on Tuesday. Sanctioned persons – including several Russian oligarchs since the attack on Ukraine – actually have to disclose their assets. This was decided by the legislature in May in the first part of a law to improve the enforcement of sanctions.
The financial politician Görke therefore spoke of an embarrassing defeat for the traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP. “The reporting obligation has flopped and urgently needs to be tightened up.” It must be extended to people who do business with oligarchs themselves – such as notaries, brokers, used car dealers, art brokers and banks. “It’s not enough to just put the names of the oligarchs on the sanctions list.” They laughed about it while authorities desperately tried to identify and freeze their assets.
According to the letter from Udo Philipp, State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs led by the Greens to the knowledge of the federal government, assets of 4.28 billion euros are currently frozen. This is the sum for Germany due to the EU sanctions regulations that were issued in the wake of the Russian attack on Ukraine at the end of February. EUR 2.28 billion of this was reported to the Bundesbank by domestic financial institutions. According to an overview, only smaller sums have been added since the end of June. Most of the assets frozen reported by domestic banks happened in June.
