Austrian Architectural Bureau Dismisses Kiev's Sanctions Over Project In Crimea

Wolf Prix, the head of Austrian architectural bureau Coop Himmelb(l)au, has dismissed Kiev's possible sanctions for the bureau's participation in designing an opera house in the Crimean city of Sevastopol as falling outside the scope of the European Union's restrictions

VIENNA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2020) Wolf Prix, the head of Austrian architectural bureau Coop Himmelb(l)au, has dismissed Kiev's possible sanctions for the bureau's participation in designing an opera house in the Crimean city of Sevastopol as falling outside the scope of the European Union's restrictions.

Earlier in the day, Alexey Makeev the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's special representative on sanction policy, said that the Ukrainian foreign ministry started to prepare sanctions against Coop Himmelb(l)au, with the Ukrainian prosecutor's office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea having initiated criminal proceedings against the representatives of the bureau over its participation in the project of Sevastopol's opera house.

"A word 'culture' is not mentioned in these [the EU] sanctions, that is why they do not apply to cultural objects," Prix said as quoted by the Austria Presse Agentur (APA).

The architect added that any unilateral Ukrainian sanctions could not seriously affect him.

According to Austrian national broadcaster ORF, the Austrian foreign ministry is now looking into the compatibility of Coop Himmelb(l)au's participation in the project in Sevastopol with the EU sanction regime.

In March 2014, Crimea rejoined Russia after over 90 percent of voters supported the move in the referendum. A number of countries, including Ukraine, did not recognized Crimea's reunification and considered the peninsula to be an occupied territory. Russia's reunification with Crimea was considered by the EU to be a violation of international law and was used as a justification for a series of sanctions against Moscow, to which the latter responded with its own countermeasures.