As a part of the war of Russia on Ukraine, European Union has imposed a sanction to block media associated with Russian government within the union.
How is this implemented in terms of legal decrees or directives and what is its legal relationship with national laws?
This sanction, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, has been implemented through amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 to include the following new section:
Article 2f
- It shall be prohibited for operators to broadcast or to enable, facilitate or otherwise contribute to broadcast, any content by the legal persons, entities or bodies listed in Annex XV, including through transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed.
- Any broadcasting licence or authorisation, transmission and distribution arrangement with the legal persons, entities or bodies listed in Annex XV shall be suspended.
It also adds the new Annex XV, listing the following entities:
- RT - Russia Today English
- RT - Russia Today UK
- RT - Russia Today Germany
- RT - Russia Today France
- RT - Russia Today Spanish
- Sputnik
There are a couple of other small changes made to include references to the new section and the new annex in other articles in the regulation.
As a Regulation, this change immediately comes into force throughout the EU as part of each country’s national law, and is binding on any person or entity under EU jurisdiction.
The accompanying Council Decision, 2014/512/CFSP, was also amended to include section 4g, with identical text as in the Regulation above. This is also immediately binding as part of EU law, but as a Decision, it is binding on member states themselves rather than persons or entities.
The member states themselves are individually responsible for identifying any breaches and imposing penalties for said breaches.
