As of today, the EU has over 40 sanctions regimes in place against countries, entities, legal and natural persons, either through United Nations Security Council sanctions or based on EU autonomous decisions.
Restrictive measures include arms embargoes, import and export bans on certain objects or substances, freezing of funds and economic resources and travel bans.
In this scenario, and although sanctions are adopted at the EU level, the EU gives member states the power to impose their own enforcement measures, which results in a lack of harmonisation between these national rules. Consequently, national systems differ considerably in terms of criminalisation of breaches of EU sanctions, including the nature of the offence (criminal or administrative) and the sanctions applied.
