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Commissioner responsible for Russian assets freeze may leave EC — newspaper

Belgium is going to nominate him to the position of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe

BRUSSELS, January 8. /TASS/. Didier Reynders, the European Commissioner for Justice, may step down from the European Commission (EC) because Belgium is going to nominate him to the position of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CE), Le Soir newspaper said.

Elections of the Secretary General will be held in June, the newspaper informed. This will be his second attempt to assume the CE Secretary General’s office. The first nomination was in 2019 but failed.

According to Le Soir, the Belgian government should back Reynders for nomination and the ruling coalition would make the decision on January 10 at the latest. He is the only Belgian candidate at the moment, news outlet’s sources said.

In case of his appointment, Reynders would have to leave the European Commission five months’ prior to expiry of powers of its current composition.

The Commissioner in particularly is in charge of the dossier for freeze of sovereign assets of the Bank of Russia and blacklisted individuals and legal entities. He is also dealing with the search for legal ways of confiscating Russian assets. According to assessments of the majority of Western lawyers, no such ways exist.

The European Commission is developing under his guidance new norms that are to create conditions for expropriation of Russian assets. Directives have already been developed that introduce criminal liability for circumvention of anti-Russian sanctions and simplify confiscation of "criminal assets" in Europe.

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