White House officials are trying to influence European governments – at least those they consider the friendliest, four EU officials said. Washington is trying to get them to reject the plan to use €210 billion of Russian assets to finance Ukraine, which suffered from aggression, the article says.
In the fall, when EU leaders were unable to reach a consensus on the frozen funds, Belgium opposed it, the publication recalls. Two months later, “it became clear that the EU’s problem is not so much in Belgium as in Trump,” the authors of the article say, and it was US pressure led to the fact that Bulgaria, Italy, Malta and the Czech Republic also began to oppose it.
Politico recalls that under the draft peace plan agreed upon by the White House and the Kremlin, Washington wants to use some of the frozen Russian assets to finance US-led reconstruction efforts. The transfer of frozen assets to Ukraine under the EU scheme – as part of a reparation loan – will allow Kyiv to decide for itself where to send the money, journalists note.
Context
About €185 billion of frozen Russian assets are managed by the financial depository Euroclear, which is based in Brussels. Another €25 billion lies in private bank accounts across the EU, Politico wrote.
In September, EC head Ursula von der Leyen presented a new plan to support Ukraine using frozen Russian assets. As part of this plan, there was a proposal for a so-called reparation loan, which provides for the provision of financing to Ukraine without direct confiscation of assets.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever immediately named three conditions under which he would agree to support the idea of a “reparation loan,” and Valerie Urbain, director of the Belgian depository Euroclear, which manages frozen Russian assets, said that she “does not rule out” legal claims against the European Union if a decision is made to confiscate them.
On December 2, the media reported that the EU had found an opportunity to use Russian billions for the needs of Ukraine without risk to Belgium.
On December 8, interlocutors of The Times reported that at a meeting between British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Merz and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in London this issue has been discussed and an agreement, in their words, is “very close.”
On 12 December the European Council agreed with the need to freeze Russian assets in the EU until the end of the war of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
