The Attorney General of the Republic of Cyprus, George Savvides, and the EU Justice Commissioner, Didier Reynders, discussed the enhancement of the Attorney General's Office, as well as sanctions against Russian and Belarusian entities in Cyprus, during a meeting they had at the Law Office of the Republic on Thursday.

In his statements after the meeting, the Attorney General expressed pleasure for his meeting with Commissioner Reynders, with whom, he said, he had the opportunity to cooperate successfully in the past on issues of common competence.

He also described the meeting as very constructive, during which, he said, the European Commission's annual Report on the Rule of Law for the current and last year was discussed, adding that it was explained to the Commissioner that the Law Office had fully aligned itself with the recommendations of the report.

Savvides added that they also discussed sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as developments regarding the Law Office’s actions as a result of an investigative committee's reports on the Cyprus Investment Programme, an issue on which a meeting with Reynders had taken place in 2021.

"We will of course be in touch on various issues that arose during the meeting and I am confident that the excellent cooperation between our offices will continue in the future," the Attorney General concluded.

On his part, Commissioner Reynders said that the two sides continue to work on the reinforcement of the Attorney General's Office as the European Commission recommendations include the allocation of more budgetary and human resources, as well as digital tools for the fight against corruption in the country.

He added that it is important to show that there is a real investment in such an independent body for different investigations and that the Commission has seen real willingness to move forward with the allocation more resources, an issue on which discussion will continue in the coming months.

Reynders also said that work continues on the revision of some decisions taken in the past on the basis of the citizenship investment scheme, adding that it is very important to ensure that there are investigations on this issue and that it is possible to define a clear process in order to decide about the possible revision of some past decisions.

The EU Justice Commissioner added that due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine it is very important to have reinforcement of the sanctions and noted that the Commission is trying to receive more and more information from Cyprus, mainly from the government rather than the Attorney General.

He added that the Commission wants to make sure that it is possible to freeze assets of oligarchs and Russian and Belarussian entities, noting that with so many significant Russian investments in the past in Cyprus it is difficult to understand why only just a little more than 100 million euro of assets have been frozen in the country.

“We want to ask the Attorney General to organize the necessary investigations to fight against any violation of the sanctions, something I will also discuss later with members of the parliament”, concluded Reynders.