Greens want EU blocking statute to shield ICC from US sanctions
Green Party co-leader Franziska Brantner wants the EU blocking statute extended to the new US sanctions against the court in The Hague.
Archive image · Photo: Superbass / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Green Party co-leader Franziska Brantner has called on the German government to push for the lifting of US sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. She told Rheinische Post that the court's institutional and financial ability to act must also be secured.
Brantner wants the EU blocking statute extended to cover the US sanctions. That would mean European companies do not cut business ties with the court solely because of the US measures. The strength of the law protects everyone from violence and arbitrariness, she argued.
The Greens' Bundestag group has already tabled a motion (printed paper 21/8562) urging the government to firmly oppose the sanctions and seek a coordinated European response. According to the Bundestag's hib news service, the US government recently extended the sanctions to the court as an institution, citing allegedly politicised rulings.