Sweden will pursue the classification of the Russian mercenary group "Wagner" as a terrorist organization at the EU level.
This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden Tobias Billström on Thursday to the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
According to the minister, his country, which currently presides over the Council of the European Union, is ready to develop a consensus on this issue among EU member states as soon as the legal conditions are met.
"Sweden is ready to work on creating unity in the EU in order to include the Wagner group in the list of terrorist sanctions of the European Union, as soon as the legal prerequisites for this appear," the diplomat said in a written comment to the publication.
Currently, the list of recognized terrorists in the EU includes 13 individuals and 21 groups.
"For a group to be subject to EU terrorism sanctions, a judicial or equivalent national competent authority, such as a court or prosecutor, must decide to open a preliminary investigation or prosecution against the group, or there must be a conviction for a terrorist act. Such a decision must be taken by the judiciary," explained the minister.
Thus, it will be possible to discuss this issue in the EU Foreign Affairs Council only after the fulfillment of the specified conditions.
The band "Wagner" was founded in 2014, it is currently managed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an associate of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
Prigozhin's assets in the EU were frozen in 2020. He was also banned from entering the EU on the grounds that he had sent his mercenaries to the war in Libya.
It is reported that the British Parliament also wants to recognize "Wagner" as a terrorist organization. It will probably take a few weeks.
The lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, voted to recognize the "Wagner" group as a terrorist organization on May 9.
