Improving the effectiveness of sanctions: A checklist for the EU

• Main Authors: DE VRIES, Anthonius W., PORTELA, Clara, GUIJARRO-USOBIAGA, Borja
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
• Subjects: Eastern European Studies; European History
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research_all/12; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=soss_research_all
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The increasingly frequent imposition of sanctions by the EU over the past decade has notbeen accompanied by a thorough pre-assessment and contingency planning stage, which hasled to the formulation of suboptimal sanctions regimes. This paper argues for establishing apre-assessment and contingency planning of sanctions, departing from the ‘ad hoc-ism’ ofcurrent decision-making on sanctions. To this end, it proposes the development of a‘checklist’ composed of key questions that need to be tackled to optimise the design ofsanctions. These questions include the identification of resources linked to the objectionablepolicies; the leverage of the EU; the costs to the EU; the legality of the measures; theirunintended effects; the expected contribution towards EU goals; their coherence with overallEU external relations; and the communication of these policies.