The latest renewal of Russia sanctions has reignited a debate that Brussels would rather avoid: what happens when the EU’s judiciary and its political institutions disagree – and the politicians win every time.
When the European Union renewed its sweeping package of individual sanctions against Russia last week, the headline was straightforward: more than 2,600 Russians remain designated, the measures stay in place, and the bloc remains united, at least on paper.
Look closer, and a more complicated picture emerges.
The renewal process exposed sharp divisions among member states, a rejected compromise that touched on fundamental questions about judicial oversight, and a growing body of court rulings that the EU’s own political institutions appear increasingly comfortable ignoring.
What actually happened during the renewal
The extension passed, but not without friction. Hungary and Slovakia threatened to block the rollover unless Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov, two prominent businessmen, were removed from the sanctions list.
Both governments argued that the factual basis for the designations had materially changed. Fridman, a Russian-Israeli billionaire, invested billions in European businesses through his Luxembourg-based fund LetterOne. In 2024, he sold his stake in Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest private lender, leaving him with only minimal exposure to Russia.
Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbek businessman, left active business more than a decade ago. He relocated to Uzbekistan and now focuses on charitable work. Since 2022, he has won dozens of legal cases against media outlets, including the US Forbes magazine and leading German publications. Courts ordered the removal of articles that had been used as part of the basis for EU sanctions against him.
Other member states were not persuaded. Slovakia then proposed a fallback: rather than an immediate delisting, a conditional commitment to remove both men only if the Court of Justice of the EU rules in their favour. It found no support in the Council.
So what is the problem?
The difficulty is that the CJEU has already weighed in on at least one of these cases and ruled against the Council.
The Court annulled the sanctions imposed on Fridman for the 2022–2023 period, finding that the evidence used to justify his designation was insufficient. That ruling did not automatically remove him from the list. Sanctions are renewed every six months by unanimous vote among member state governments, meaning a court ruling and a political decision are entirely separate processes.
That gap between what courts decide and what the Council does is at the heart of the current controversy.
If the Council were confident its legal case was sound, critics argue, it would have had little reason to reject a mechanism tying delisting to a favourable court ruling. The refusal to accept even that conditional arrangement has led legal observers to question whether the Council privately regards its own evidentiary basis in the cases of Fridman and Usmanov as robust.
The case that puts it in sharpest relief
No case illustrates the tension more clearly than that of Dmitry Pumpyansky, a Russian steel and pipe manufacturer sanctioned in 2022.
Pumpyansky stepped down from his company and challenged his designation before the General Court. In June 2024, the Court annulled his sanctions, finding the case against him had not been adequately substantiated. The Council responded by reimposing the measures under revised justifications.
In September 2025, the Court annulled them again. It found that press articles, company registry excerpts and references to his attendance at official events did not establish that he retained ongoing economic influence in Russia. The Council renewed the listing regardless.
His lawyers described the cycle as a “perpetuum mobile of illegality.” Two court victories. Still sanctioned.
Is this legal?
Technically, yes, for now. EU sanctions law does not currently require the Council to delist someone simply because a court has annulled a previous designation. Each renewal is treated as a fresh political decision, meaning a new listing can be justified on updated grounds even after a judicial defeat.
But legal scholars and practitioners increasingly question whether that framework is compatible with the EU’s foundational commitment to the rule of law, particularly when revised justifications rely on substantially the same evidence that courts have already rejected.
What happens next
The six-month rollover, shorter than the twelve months many governments had sought, means the debate will resume before September. A full review of the list is scheduled ahead of that deadline.
Whether the divisions that surfaced during this round will have narrowed by then is unclear. What is clear is that the question at the centre of the dispute: whether judicial rulings should carry binding weight in the EU sanctions process — has not been answered. It has simply been deferred.
For Fridman, Usmanov, Pumpyansky and others pursuing cases through EU courts, that deferral has a practical meaning: a favourable verdict may be real, but its consequences remain uncertain.
