Abstract: This study focuses on the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, two countries which do not carry out autonomous sanctions, but are, nevertheless, obliged to implement sanctions adopted by international organisations because of their membership commitments. The study explores the fulfilment of their commitments to sanctions policy arising from the membership in the EU. Theories of compliance are deployed and two phases needed for proper implementation of EU norms are analysed—at the stage of transposition of legislation introducing formal compliance and at the stage of practical implementation discussing behavioural compliance. This work seeks to determine the two countries’ levels of conformity or the differences between them in this respect during their implementation of sanctions imposed by the EU by comparing their legislative (formal compliance) and institutional/administrative tools (behavioural compliance). The differences between the analysed countries are considerable both in temporal variations of transposition and in quality of practical implementation.

Keywords: Sanctions Policy, Formal Compliance, Behavioural Compliance, European Union, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic