The police union (GdP) has criticized unclear responsibilities when tracking down sanctioned oligarch assets. “Germany has no authority that searches for sanctioned assets, criminal assets or assets of suspicious origin,” said GdP chairman Frank Buckenhofer, who is responsible for customs, on Thursday to Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Among other things, customs is responsible for imported and exported items, but not for assets in Germany, such as real estate. Buckenhofer criticized that the Sanctions Enforcement Act passed in May did not create clear responsibilities. “It was essentially said that the federal states should do it, although sanctions are an instrument of foreign policy and naturally belong to the responsibility of the federal government.”
The federal states knew that a second sanctions enforcement law was to follow in the fall. In this it is planned to relocate the task to the federal government. “And how committed the countries then proceed, you can certainly imagine.”
Buckenhofer called for a financial police modeled on Italy. These can be quickly formed from the police enforcement units of customs. “Then you would also have the billions that are vagrant, disrupting the honest market and being claimed by people who are guaranteed not to have bought them legally,” he said.
France has withdrawn soldiers from an anti-terrorist operation in Mali. Russian soldiers are said to have suddenly appeared in Mali. German soldiers saw that. The Bundeswehr has suspicions as to why the Kremlin men are there.
RBB Abendschau presenter Eva-Maria Lemke now reports a “very unreal situation” about a spontaneous meeting with the ousted director Patricia Schlesinger. She met immediately after Schlesinger’s statement in front of the broadcasting council.
The exemption from VAT for the planned gas levy that the federal government wanted is finally off the table.
