According to The Wall Street Journal, on December 15, the European Union added Jacques Baud, a retired Swiss army colonel and former intelligence analyst living in Brussels, to its sanctions list. His official offense is promoting “pro-Russian propaganda,” specifically for appearing on media outlets Brussels dislikes and for an implausible claim that Ukraine orchestrated its own invasion. He is not accused of being a Russian agent or receiving funding from Moscow. As a result, the bloc has frozen all his funds in the EU and restricted his travel across its 27 member states. All of this was done without a trial, based on a unanimous political vote by the EU Council.
A Political Hammer for Speech
Here’s the thing: sanctions are supposed to be a tool for state actors. They’re a financial and diplomatic weapon. Using them against a private citizen for giving interviews and writing books is a massive escalation. And the process is, frankly, terrifying from a rule-of-law perspective. The decision isn’t made by a court; it’s a political vote by foreign ministers. The target is only informed after their assets are frozen and their life is upended. The official sanctions listing and the underlying Council Regulation show how this works in practice.
The Chilling Effect Is the Point
So what actually counts as punishable “disinformation” or “propaganda”? The terms are incredibly vague in EU law. Could criticizing NATO expansion qualify? What about questioning the scale of EU aid to Ukraine? When the boundaries are this fuzzy, the real impact is self-censorship. Analysts, journalists, and academics will start to wonder if they’re next. The article cites a Swiss legal expert speculating that journalist Roger Köppel could be a future target, as reported by Blick. That’s how it works. You don’t have to sanction everyone; you just have to make an example of a few.
A Legal Fight with High Stakes
Jacques Baud says he’ll challenge this in court. And he should, regardless of what you think of his views. This is a fundamental test. The EU Charter, specifically Article 52, allows speech restrictions only if they’re necessary and proportionate. This sanctions regime, with all its ambiguity, seems to flip that on its head: speech is presumed punishable if it goes against the official narrative. The courts usually defer to the Council on foreign policy, but this is stretching that deference to a breaking point. When a government—or a bloc of governments—can destroy your livelihood for your opinions without due process, nobody’s freedom is secure. That’s not a beacon of human rights; it’s a warning flare.
