The delistings, announced Tuesday, came at the request of France and Luxembourg, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.
The paper said Paris hoped to secure the release of two French citizens jailed in Azerbaijan. Luxembourg intervened for Fridman, who is seeking USD 16 billion (EUR 14 billion) from the country in arbitration proceedings.
Usmanov, who has close ties to President Vladimir Putin, "can travel freely again, his millions will be unfrozen", the paper said. The reasons he was sanctioned in 2022 have not changed.
Commentator Jan Diesteldorf called the decision "incomprehensible". He said it could not be defended by noting that about 3,000 other people remain under sanctions, now for three years instead of six months.
"Standing individual interests above joint action against the Russian war machine leads to an erosion of Europe's credibility", he wrote. He pointed to Greece, which held up a ban on Russian liquefied gas transport for weeks before the summer break, as an example of sanctions being taken hostage "in the name of national egoism".
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also called the decision "fatal". It predicted that other beneficiaries of the Russian regime would now look for weak points in EU countries to exploit.
The paper said the EU risks looking as though it decides sanctions on short-term political calculation rather than substance. Brussels should have set clear conditions for delisting, it argued, such as publicly opposing the war or supporting Ukraine.
It credited one upside: the three-year extension spares the bloc a "theatre" every six months. "But the price is high", its commentator wrote.
Tageszeitung's Barbara Oertel said it was hypocritical to feign shock at a "dangerous precedent". She noted that Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico had long tried to block sanctions to please Putin. Now, she wrote, French President Emmanuel Macron has dropped out of the group of "willing" countries.
Oertel said France will not be the only country more exposed to blackmail, particularly when seeking to free citizens held in Russia, Azerbaijan or Belarus. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko knows this "cynical game", she wrote, having tried it with the United States by trading prisoner releases for lifted sanctions.
Ukraine has sharply criticised the decision. Oertel said the debate should also take place within the EU.
"For some it may be 'realpolitik', but in reality it is proof of the EU's incompetence", she wrote.
(jh)
Source: PAP