Switzerland refuses to freeze any more Russian assets, said Helene Budliger Artieda, the new head of the Swiss country’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), in an interview with Neue Zürcher Zeitung on Tuesday.
The local newspaper asked him his opinion about the recent statements by Scott Miller, the US ambassador in Bern, in which he accused the SECO of not taking the sanctions against Moscow seriously enough, assuring that they could block 55,360 to 110.721 million dollars in Russian funds.
“We do a good job and we have a team that makes an extraordinary effort,” explained Budliger Artieda. “When we meet on a technical level with the EU, the UK and also the US, we never hear this kind of criticism,” he added.
“There are misunderstandings”
In this sense, he indicated that “obviously there are misunderstandings”, since the figure given by Miller was an estimate of the Russian funds under management that initially circulated, and not a data offered by the administration.
He also clarified that not all Russians were subject to sanctions, but only a small minority, detailing that Switzerland has frozen 8.304 million dollars, which is a third of the approximately 23.495 million dollars frozen throughout the EU.
“Why should Switzerland do a sloppy job?” he continued. “We keep saying to the US and all partner countries: ‘If you have any useful information, please give it to us. We’ll follow up on her.’ To this day we have not received anything from the Americans either,” she added.
Finally, the official affirmed that the federal government did not dictate to any bank or company which clients it could maintain relations with. “The confiscation of private property is not allowed in Switzerland unless they have a proven criminal record,” she concluded. with RT