Hungary, which had previously expressed reservations about the bill, finally unified its position with the rest of the EU at the last minute after the EU Council unanimously approved the European version of the Magnitsky Human Rights Act on December 10. Senator André Gattolin of the French ruling party, a major promoter of the bill, explained to RFE/RL the rules of operation of the bill, in particular whether the approval of all EU member states is required for the adoption of each sanctions bill.
France: First of all, would you please comment on the specific effects of the adoption of this bill?
André Gattolin: The adoption of the European version of the Magnitsky Human Rights Act by the Council of the European Union today by a unanimous vote is a major step forward in European legislation to defend human rights, allowing the EU to impose effective sanctions against all individuals and groups who violate human rights within the EU and beyond its borders. Because until now, the EU has only been able to impose wholesale sanctions, such as the economic and technical sanctions imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea, these measures have not only harmed the lives of ordinary Russians, but have also provided the Russian government with material to attack the EU and increase popular support for them. The Magnitsky Act would allow the EU to more accurately target human rights abusers by allowing the EU to impose direct sanctions on government officials who violate human rights by banning them from entering the EU, confiscating all their assets in the EU, etc. Before the EU, the U.S. was the first to adopt the Magnitsky Act in 2012, followed by Canada, the UK and the three Nordic Baltic countries. The EU now has a new tool to defend human rights.
France: Does the implementation of the EU Magnisky Act require a unanimous vote of the EU member states in each case?
André Gattolin: That is the crux of the matter, in principle yes, we are working with leading international judicial experts on the specific implementation rules of the bill to try to clarify in the implementation rules that the principle of unanimous vote can be overridden in certain exceptional cases. The expectation is that the bill will be implemented concretely from next year, and of course, the first person on the EU Magnitsky Act sanctions list is likely to be a country that does not have significant interests with the EU, which is to make it easier to get the support of all EU member states, i.e., it is unlikely to be China. However, once a precedent is set, it will be much easier to sanction other countries next.
In addition, André Gattolin introduced in the interview that he and Ms. Mireille Clapot, a member of the French National Assembly, have proposed that the European Parliament award next year’s Sakharov Human Rights Prize to Bill Browder, Magnitsky’s former collaborator who traveled the world to promote the Magnitsky Act.
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