Dear Madam President!
Our family have been in the territory of the European Union since May 2022 as the applicants for refugee status in the Republic of Slovenia. The reason is the threat to security and life due to disagreement with the policy of the Russian leadership and the ongoing expansion against Ukraine. We have opposed and continue to oppose the existing regime in our country and against the war. We have relatives in Ukraine, to fight against them and other citizens of Ukraine is contrary to our moral convictions.
In Russia, there is a constant increase in the persecution of people who disagree with the current regime and policy. Famous people and mostly ordinary people like us suffer from it. Examples of such harassment can easily be found on the Internet and independent media. Every day appear more and more cases where people are sent to prison for expressing their thoughts, reposting of the news, reading poetry and even for private talking within their families. They are declared as terrorists, extremists, spies and traitors to the Motherland. In such situation, to return to Russia is to put our lives in danger. Now we became pariahs for our home country!
However, to our surprise, repression of Russian citizens is also possible in Europe. We are talking about a ban on the entry into the territory of the European Union of cars with Russian license plates due to the Annex XXI to Article 3i of EU regulation № 833/2014.
In May 2022, we arrived in the European Union through the border of Latvia and Russia, and entered Slovenia through Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria. All these countries, except Austria, have imposed a ban on cars with Russian license plates. The list of such countries is constantly expanding. According to the recommendations of the European Commission, cars with Russian license plates should be confiscated. We abandoned our home and everything we had in Russia, fleeing from the regime and it turned out that the European Commission wants to deprive us of the most valuable and important thing we took with us?
If such a norm is introduced in Slovenia, it will put us on the brink of survival. Our car is far from new - our only property here, which we earned by honest longtime work. As we do not have any support from the Slovenian government, just 18 euro per month per person, we have to rely only on ourselves and on our car!
If we are deprived of it, then we will not be able to visit the shops to buy groceries, nor get to the clinic or pharmacy when we get sick, nor to study local language, nor get a job, nor get our two cats to the veterinary, etc. All these places and many others can only be reached by car! The situation is complicated by the fact that our son suffers from a serious illness and providing him with timely assistance depends entirely on the availability of a car.
We can't sell a car in the EU, because of EU commission restrictions and buy the new one because of very scarce finances and we don’t ask anything, just to let us to survive!
To transfer the car back to Russia is also not possible due to the restrictions of the countries, having a border with Russia. We cannot even leave Slovenia until the end of the examination of our case and the receipt of refugee status. And even if we get refugee status, we still not able to return to Russia. Then we will break the rules regarding refugees by returning to the country, from which we fled, and lose the opportunity to return to the European Union (Slovenian law - Zakon o mednarodni zaščiti (ZMZ-1) and Regulation (EU) № 604/2013, Regulation (EU) № 603/2013, Directive 2013/33/EU, Directive 2013/32/EU).
In our opinion, the attitude of the European Commission and the EU countries towards Russian political refugees is a discrimination on the basis of nationality. This practice is directly detrimental to Russians who oppose the dictatorship and against the war in Ukraine, and sets them up not against their government, but against the European Union, from which they seek protection! Would the UE Commission really like to send all these people back to Russia to make them participate in the war against Ukraine?
We do not understand what benefit the Russian Federation receives from the fact that our car is operated for personal purposes on the territory of the European Union?
Please explain how the personal car usage contributes to violations of the sanctions regime?
We ask you to explain why the personal property of Russian citizens, including cars located in the European Union, helps Russia to carry out aggression against Ukraine? Why does the European Union's purchase of oil and gas from the Russian Federation, which brings fabulous money to the Russian budget, not support this aggression?
In fact, the use of the rules of Article 3i hits only poor people. On the one hand, wealthy Russian citizens still easily fly to Europe on business jets, buy cars and real estate here, registering them for their companies. On the other hand, people with incomes below average escaped from Russia by car, saving on expenses. Until recently, they have been leaving Russia taking everything they could for living in their cars. We see here the notorious double standards and hypocrisy of European countries! We are very ashamed of such an attitude towards us from Europe, on which we had very high hopes and we are still trying to believe that the democracy and universal human values are still alive here.
On behalf of ourselves and thousands of Russian citizens who find themselves in a similar and virtually hopeless situation, we ask the European Commission to revise the rules of Annex XXI to Article 3i of EU regulation No. 833/2014 in favor of respecting our basic human rights – to own a car and other belongs for personal needs only and the right to dispose of it in European countries.
Respectfully yours,
Aleksei Krylov,
Alesia Krylova
Maksim Krylov