The U.K. issued a General License permitting relevant parties to perform activities to ensure the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance relating to the war in Ukraine, in Crimea and non-Ukraine controlled areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The license indefinitely permits such activity and also says any money used to carry out such humanitarian activity can't be from funds owned, held or controlled by a sanctioned individual or entity.

The EU is looking at ways to bolster its sanctions enforcement regime and harmonize it across member states, the Financial Times reported. Mairead McGuinness, the EU's commissioner for financial stability, financial services and the capital markets union, said officials are contemplating opening a version of the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. McGuinness said the commission is looking at other enforcement measures as well, including forcing sanctioned parties to disclose their assets, syncing definitions of control across nations and broadening registers of beneficial ownership. The commission further requested reports from member states on sanctions enforcement, FT reported. Along these lines, the European Council requested the consent of the European Parliament to add the violation of restrictive measures to the list of EU crimes laid out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU to crack down on sanctions circumvention (see 2207010014).

The U.K. dropped nine entries from its cyber sanctions regime, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation announced in a July 5 notice. OFSI removed eight individuals -- Aleyona Chuguleva, Darya Dugina, Yuriy Fedin, Denis Gafner, Yevgeniy Glotov, Valeriya Kalabayeva, Aelita Mamakova and Mikhail Sinelin -- and one entity, United World International, from the consolidated list. All remain subject to an asset freeze under the Russia regime.

Eleven non-EU European countries implemented restrictions against ISIL (Da'esh) and al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities to mirror the EU's recent sanctions action, the European Council announced July 5. Last month, the council added three individuals and one entity to the list of sanctioned parties under the ISIL/al-Qaida restrictions. North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Armenia and Georgia aligned themselves with the decision.

The European Commission in a July 1 move enabled member states to drop customs duties and value-added taxes temporarily on the import of food, blankets, tents, electric generators and "other life-saving equipment," meant for Ukrainians affected by the war. The action applies retroactively to Feb. 24 and will run until Dec. 31. Since Russian's invasion of Ukraine in February, over 14 million people have been displaced, with 6.2 million arriving in EU nations. To aid EU member states' humanitarian response to these refugees, the commission issued the waivers for goods imported by state organizations and charitable or philanthropic organizations approved by the member states' authorities.

The U.K. released three general licenses pertaining to its Russian sanctions regime. The first, "Wind Down of Positions Involving Rosbank," allows until July 30 an individual or entity to wind down any transactions to which it is a party involving Rosbank or a subsidiary. Such action includes closing out of any positions, repaying loans, withdrawing deposits and closing accounts. The next license, "Wind down positions involving National Bank of Belarus," allows an individual to give financial services for winding down any "derivatives, repurchase, and reverse purchase transactions" entered into before July 5 with the National Bank of Belarus, Ministry of Finance of Belarus and those individuals listed under the Belarus sanctions regime. The last license, "Transferable securities, money market instruments, loans and credit arrangements," permits a seven-day wind down period for category C loans and transferable securities and money market instruments under the Belarus sanctions regime.

The U.K. on July 4 amended its Russian sanctions guidance page on prohibitions on insurance and reinsurance services for aviation and space goods to an individual or entity connected with Russia or for use in Russia. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said the "provision of insurance and reinsurance services in respect of a satellite where the only nexus with Russia is that it is orbiting over Russia, or broadcasting to Russia (and where the insurance and reinsurance services will not be provided to a person connected with Russia), would likewise not come within the scope of these prohibitions."

The European Council on June 29 decided to create an anti-money laundering authority (AMLA) to further crack down on terrorism financing and money laundering. The new authority will "contribute to the harmonisation and coordination of supervisory practices in the financial and non-financial sectors, the direct supervision of high-risk and cross-border financial entities and the coordination of financial intelligence units," the council said. The new agency will monitor certain credit and financial institutions that the EU deems risky.

The U.K. is keeping holdover safeguards on five categories of steel products despite the tariffs violating Britain's World Trade Organization commitments, U.K. International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said in a June 29 speech to the House of Commons. When the U.K. left the EU, it kept its safeguards covering 19 categories of steel. Throughout 2021, the Trade Remedies Authority reviewed the measures, recommending the government remove safeguards on nine of those categories. In June 2021, the U.K. said it would extend the safeguards on 10 product categories for three years and remove them on four of the remaining nine, extending the safeguards for one year on the other five. The TRA then carried out additional analysis, leading to Trevelyan calling for the continuation of the tariffs on the five steel categories for another two years, until June 30, 2024.

The European Council on June 30 requested the consent of the European Parliament to add the violation of restrictive measures to the list of "EU Crimes" laid out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, the council said. The move is intended to crack down on the circumvention on the EU's many sanctions regimes, most notably Russia restrictions made following the invasion of Ukraine. With EU member states having different definitions of what constitutes a violation of the EU's sanctions regimes, the council said that greater effort is needed to harmonize sanctions enforcement.