Nicosia launches special unit to sift through sanctions

No derogation from EU sanctions will be tolerated, President of the Republic Nikos Christodoulides stressed on Wednesday during a meeting at the Presidential Palace on the sanctions imposed by the US and the UK against natural and legal persons from Cyprus. The President was also informed about the procedures to establish the National Sanctions Implementation Unit.

According to Government Spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, after the conclusion of the meeting, the President of the Republic requested that a road map be prepared with effective actions that must be taken. He also reiterated that the credibility of the country must be preserved and that no derogation from EU sanctions will be tolerated.

The Spokesman said that the Cypriot side was informed about the position of the British High Commission, which praises the cooperation of the Republic of Cyprus, following the position of the State Department announced in the previous days.

"All state services and competent authorities, in coordination, communicated both at the technocratic and political level with their counterparts in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, in order to find the fastest and most effective channels of providing the data and to transmit it to the Law Office so that it can be evaluated", he went on to say.

He noted that in addition to the above, the Governor of the Central Bank informed that banking institutions froze the bank accounts of the individuals and legal entities that were on the lists, and that the European Central Bank considers that Cyprus has made great progress in recent years and is satisfied with the steps that the Republic of Cyprus has taken.

Specifically, in recent years 43,000 shell companies and 123,000 bank accounts have been closed in Cyprus, while today only 2.2% of all deposits have Russian citizens as final beneficiaries.

The Spokesman said that the President of the Republic was informed about the procedures for establishing the National Sanctions Implementation Unit, which will also have technocratic support from the corresponding Service of the United Kingdom.