Europe Builds a Sanctions State. He Fights It. | Col. Jacques Baud

## Introduction Europe is quietly building a new instrument of governance: a sanctions architecture that can operate outside the ordinary bounds of criminal justice and domestic law. What begins as a foreign-policy lever aimed across borders can, as the recent case discussed in the conversation makes plain, become a means of coercion directed inward, affecting residents and citizens of Europe itself. The exchange with Colonel Jacques Baud—an intelligence professional now placed on an EU sanctions list—illuminates not only the legal gray zones that allow such measures to be deployed, but also the institutional practices and narrative habits that normalize extracivic punishment. This is more than an individual complaint; it is a warning about precedent, process, and the transformation of foreign-policy tools into domestic instruments of reputation management and control. ## “Now, are there any updates on the legal front… Anything that you can share with us?” The legal battle in Baud’s case is already instructive. The materials provided to him and his counsel are described not as comprehensive legal dossiers but as collections of open-source items: press articles, translated snippets, and secondary summaries. These are identified as the working papers that underpin the Council’s decision. Crucially, Baud reports that the documents lack direct quotations and lack the rigour of verification that would be expected in any judicial or administrative proceeding grounded in evidence. The upshot is a decision that appears to rest on assembled narratives rather than on an empirically tested case. That dynamic shapes the legal options available to those targeted. Unlike criminal defendants who confront an accusation in court with the right to confront evidence and witnesses, an individual facing an EU sanctions listing must attack the legitimacy of the Council’s decision rather than mount a conventional defense against the allegation itself. Baud and his lawyers plan to challenge the Council’s authority and procedures before the European Court of Justice, but that route is reactive and constrained: one protests an administrative act from which immediate harm already flows. Even when limited humanitarian relief is granted—such as permission to draw funds for essential needs—the procedural delays can sustain the punishment for months. The enforcement-first, remedy-later rhythm of these designs transforms a policy tool into an effective extrajudicial sentence. ## “What can the council’s legal department do and what can they not?” The conversation probes the institutional mechanics at the heart of the EU’s sanctions practice. The Council’s legal apparatus is, by design, not a criminal investigative unit; it lacks coercive investigatory powers and must rely principally on publicly available sources. That structural limitation would not be problematic if the Council applied strict standards of verification and legal analysis to the material it aggregates. Yet Baud describes a contrasting practice: automatic compilation, mechanical translation, and selective citation without a binding legal assessment. What is being exercised, then, is the power to label and exclude based on curated public narratives rather than on adjudicated fact. This selective approach has two implications. First, it privileges convenience and speed over accuracy. Administrative bodies often move faster than courts, and speed can be attractive in the political calculus of sanctions. Second, it opens the door to cherry-picking: assembling a case from fragments that can be read as incriminating while ignoring exculpatory context or direct sources that would undermine the allegation. The Council’s legal department, insofar as it functions as the author of these lists, possesses the institutional ability to forward an individual to the sanctions registry—but it lacks the forensic reach to substantiate complex allegations in a way that satisfies norms of due process. What remains is an administrative black box with enormous material consequences for the person listed. ## Sanctions as foreign-policy weapons turning inward Sanctions have always been a foreign-policy instrument—a way to inflict economic pain, impose diplomatic isolation, or signal disapproval toward states and actors beyond a polity’s territorial jurisdiction. Historically, they have been justified by international law and by political necessity in dealing with regimes or entities that violate norms. The worry that emerges from Baud’s case is different: the repurposing of external coercive tools to settle domestic or domestic-facing disputes, to silence critics, or to police narratives inside the polity that creates those tools. This is not merely hypothetical. The expansion of targeted measures—from states to entities, from political elites abroad to journalists or activists at home—tracks a trajectory whereby external tools become internal instruments. Such inward-turning sanctions replicate the logic of colonial-era extraterritorial remedies and contemporary extrajudicial practices: remove a person from the ordinary protections of domestic law and subject them to punitive measures nonetheless. The effects are indisputable—frozen accounts, restricted movement, reputational blacklisting—and they are immediate. Remedies, where available, come slowly and often conditionally, leaving individuals in a prolonged state of legal limbo. The political logic is seductive for executives: sanctions allow policymakers to act decisively without the friction of domestic courts or the evidentiary thresholds demanded there. But the normative cost is heavy. The European project rests on rule-of-law guarantees that insulate citizens from arbitrary state power. When administrative foreign-policy tools are wielded against residents and non-citizens within the European space, those protections erode. The state’s monopoly on coercion begins to tilt from public accountability toward opaque executive judgment, and the precedent set in one high-profile case becomes a template for many lesser ones. ## Ukraine war lessons, systems thinking, training mismatch The conversation also connects the sanctions phenomenon to broader lessons from contemporary conflict and organizational practice. Baud argues that modern warfare—and the hybrid operations that surround it—demand systems thinking, rigorous analytical training, and a careful matching of goals to capabilities. Yet bureaucracies often transplant wartime or foreign-policy habits into peacetime administrative regimes without adapting the institutional capacities required for fair adjudication. The Ukraine war, in particular, has generated intense pressure to manage disinformation, to counter hostile narratives, and to constrain malign influence. In that environment, sanctions are attractive: they are a tool that promises clarity of action against named actors. But without commensurate investment in evidentiary standards, investigative capacity, and legal oversight, such actions can misfire. Misapplied designations feed conspiracy narratives, delegitimize genuine counter-measures, and create perverse incentives for state actors to bypass courts in favor of administrative fiat. Training mismatch compounds the problem. Intelligence and military cultures prioritize operational speed and secrecy; legal-administrative cultures prioritize transparency, evidence, and the opportunity to contest. When the former drives the latter without integrating its safeguards, the result is predictable: measures that look like policy wins in the short term but erode institutional legitimacy over time. Baud’s background as a practitioner highlights this gap—he sees a gulf between the logic of operational necessity and the legalistic structures needed to ensure accountability. If the EU’s sanctions machinery is to remain legitimate, it must reconcile those tensions. That means building investigatory practices that examine p

Europe Builds a Sanctions State. He Fights It. | Col. Jacques Baud Can EU sanctions turn into punishment without trial, and can foreign-policy powers be aimed inward at Europeans? In this talk, I’m joined by Colonel Jacques Baud (former Swiss Army colonel and intelligence officer), now targeted by EU sanctions, to unpack the legal gray zone, the evidence problem, and the wider push for narrative control. Links: Appeal & petition site: https://www.appeal- baud.com Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Merch & Donations: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:29 Sanctions as extrajudicial punishment and dangerous precedent 00:06:26 “Now, are there any updates on the legal front… Anything that you can share with us?” 00:10:02 “They can only use publicly available sources… Is that the case?” 00:13:23 “What can the council’s legal department do and what can they not?” 00:18:13 Humanitarian derogation and frozen accounts 00:24:43 Sanctions as foreign- policy weapons turning inward 00:36:27 Hybrid warfare narratives and the Gerasimov doctrine claim 00:44:46 Ukraine war lessons, systems thinking, training mismatch 00:57:07 Outro #Pascal Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Neutrality Studies. My name is Pascal Lottaz. I'm an associate professor at Kyoto University. Today I'm joined again by my compatriot and friend, Colonel Jacques Boll, former colonel of the Swiss Army, intelligence officer, and, since December 2025, also a person non grata—or rather, a person on the EU sanctions list. We've talked to Jacques before; he's given us quite a bit of explanation on this channel. He's also been on the channel of NEMA, Dialogue Works. I think your case, Jacques, is now well known, and I'm happy to report that in Switzerland, where I'm visiting right now, your case is being discussed in the circles I've been with— on the left and on the right. Your case is having quite an impact on the discussion about the future of Switzerland and the future of Europe in general. I'm very glad to have you back here on the channel. #Jacques Baud Yeah, well, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me again. Thank you for all the support and everything you’ve done in favor of my case. I know all the efforts you’ve made in the last two months about this, and I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done and for all you’ve also triggered and helped to do to improve my situation. But as you rightly said, my situation is my situation, of course. Yet it entails a danger for others as well. I mean, my case is a precedent—or a -- 1 of 16 -- possible precedent—for other cases in the future. And I think a lot of people have understood that we’re dealing with an extrajudicial type of punishment, and this is something that goes against any rules, practices, and even values that we have in Europe. I mean, the history of democracy in Europe is based on those practices and principles of habeas corpus and the rule of law. And when we say “rule of law,” that means everything is ruled by law. But here, in my case, we have exactly the opposite—you have people who rule outside the law. And that contains a very, very significant danger, especially because Europeans, let’s put it that way, haven’t realized that aspect. So far, the measures I’m under are foreign policy measures. They were designed to reach people outside the limits of European law, if you want—people living outside the EU. And therefore, this is exactly the same thing. I mean, you can compare it. In war, you have the right to kill people. But when you’re not at war, you’re not allowed to kill anyone. That’s why there’s a distinction between foreign policy—which includes war, not internal wars but external ones—and domestic policy. In domestic law, it’s forbidden to kill, but in foreign policy, you may have that right under certain circumstances, of course. So it’s exactly the same thing here. And when we start to confuse law and no law, we end up in a situation that’s extremely concerning. That’s exactly it. I mean, you made a video about the issue of legality, extra-legality—not illegality, but extra-legality—being outside the law. And we are exactly in this situation, which is extremely concerning. I see that more and more people are starting to understand that—something that wasn’t the case at the beginning. When the sanctions were issued, nobody understood. Some people thought it was a normal judicial decision, but it’s not a judicial decision; it’s an extra-judicial one. And that’s the problem. So these are just a few thoughts about what you said, and I think that should guide the whole process. I mean, obviously, I’m at the center of the problem today, but what’s happening to me now could happen to anyone tomorrow—and that’s something nobody wants. #Pascal No, that’s definitely not what we want. And this regime—if it doesn’t stop—it will expand. I mean, it’s a tool. And at the moment, it’s a tool that’s being used experimentally, I would say, to see what’s possible. You can also see how there’s been a progression: first using sanctions against states only, then against entities, then against people who were close to those entities, then—especially in Russia—against people inside Russia who were connected somehow, like journalists who reported from Donbass, and so on. And then against individuals inside the European Union. You’re not an EU citizen, as a Swiss, but Hussein Dogru is, and he’s in Germany. You can see how there’s this experimental phase, and if it doesn’t stop here, it will get worse. Now, are there any updates on the legal front—like with your lawyers or the people you’ve talked to—about how you’re approaching the legal battle against this? Anything you can share with us? Because obviously, maybe not everything can be made public. -- 2 of 16 -- #Jacques Baud Yes, there are obviously some things I’m not allowed to say publicly at this stage. My lawyers and I have received the documents that formed the basis of the decision to put me under sanctions. So we know what the substance of the accusation is, if you will. Unfortunately, we’re not able to share that. And even if we were allowed, I wouldn’t do it, because that will be part of—well, it will define the strategy we’ll use to challenge the sanctions decision. It’s also important to realize that some people say, “Well, in Belgium, for instance, there’s a professor of international law who says we’re in a rule of law, because now you can go against the decision.” Well, this is not the rule of law. We’re just attacking, if you will. To summarize the strategy a bit: we cannot go against the decision itself; we can only attack the Council of the European Union and say, well, they took a decision they shouldn’t have taken. That’s it. So this is not a defense in the legal sense of the word—it’s a counterattack, if I can put it that way. And that means we’ll base our defense on the substance of the accusations, unfortunately. That’s German, sorry. #Jacques Baud What I can say is that in all the documents published, I received none of them—none of them cite a direct quote I shouldn’t have made. None of them include a direct quote; it’s always hearsay, what people have said about me, or things like that. There’s no direct quote from me. #Pascal Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this could happen again at any time. So please consider subscribing not only here, but also to my mailing list on Substack — that’s pascallottaz.substack.com. The link’s in the description below. And now, back to the video. I was told by Hussein Dogru that the accusations are based on the fact that the Council doesn’t have the power to conduct criminal investigations. So they can only use publicly available sources to build the case against you. They base everything on what’s already been published and rely on secondary sources — like, “Magazine X said the following about Jacques, therefore the accusation stands.” Is that the case? Is that the thing? Yeah, it’s absolutely that. It’s absolutely that. #Jacques Baud And that’s even more shocking because… I don’t want to discuss other people’s cases, since obviously each one has its own specifics. But in my case, everything I’ve said is in my books. You know, it’s all written somewhere. So you can check—if there’s an accusation or someone claims I said this or that, you can verify it. Everything is verifiable. But there’s absolutely no verification done by the EU. They just select specific information to substantiate the accusation, but they don’t check all the information. So it’s cherry-picking. In technical terms, “cherry-picking” is a nice word. -- 3 of 16 -- But technically speaking, it’s like they’ve built up a conspiracy theory. What the EU does is build a conspiracy theory. That means they never go to the original source, never to the original document. They just take what people have said or understood about it, and that’s it. They make a case out of that. And that’s extremely—well, that’s extremely interesting. I think when the whole thing is done, I mean, I’ll certainly—when all that can be made public, I can tell you it will be extremely, extremely devastating for the European Union. Because if they had taken one of my books and said, “Well, in your book you say this and that,” I could say, “Okay, I did say that. It’s written. No problem. I can justify it.” But it’s not even that. As I said, there isn’t a single direct quote from me. They even took a press article where I said I was going against Russian propaganda. So I wasn’t endorsing anything—I was just stating facts, saying that Russia was saying things that, in my opinion, it shouldn’t have said. So sometimes you just don’ t understand. They probably just picked an article where they saw the name Jacques Bourdieu, grabbed it, and that was it. #Pascal You know, the challenge for us now is to figure out how the process in the background works, because that might give us clues about how to most effectively challenge the buildup of this internal sanctions regime, right? And one of the things we seem to understand now is that the Council of the EU—and it’s not, I must repeat, it’s not the Commission, it’s the Council—the Council, according to my information, now has a legal department. And you guys are in touch with that legal department, right? That’s the case—the legal department of the Council? #Jacques Baud Well, I'm not exactly sure who my lawyers will address. I don't know if it's the legal department of the European Council or the European Court of Justice. There might be a slight difference there, but I don't want to go into those details. They might be interesting, but at this stage I'm not able to give more information because right now we’re working with the lawyers. I'm sorry—I'm mixing things up. I’ve spoken so much German in recent days that I’m confusing German and English. Sorry about that. The thing is, we’re not yet elaborating a strategy. We’re analyzing the documents that were provided to us, which are called working papers—that’s the technical term for those documents. So we’re going through them, checking everything sentence by sentence. #Pascal Yes, may I just jump in? Sorry—the only thing I want to say is that the way it works, I think, will be important, because there is a counterparty, right? And the counterparty—the people who execute this—are probably the legal department of the Council, if I understood correctly. They build the case against you, and then the ECJ, the European Court of Justice, is in the middle, right? It’s the one -- 4 of 16 -- that has to analyze it, and maybe they’ll forward everything. But those are the parties. The interesting thing to me is, what can the Council’s legal department do, and what can they not? They can’t do a criminal investigation, because it’s not a criminal process. So they have to build their case ba