Representatives of the American administration have attempted to influence the governments of European Union countries not to support the plan to use 210 billion euros of frozen assets of the Russian Federation to finance Ukraine. This information was disclosed by senior EU officials.
This is reported by Kyiv24
Different positions of the US and EU regarding Russian assets
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly denied accusations of pressure from the US. She emphasized that both sides, Ukraine and Russia, have clearly outlined their positions regarding the frozen assets, and the role of the American side is merely to facilitate dialogue that could lead to an agreement.
“Both Ukrainians and Russians have clearly defined their positions on the frozen assets, and our sole task is to facilitate an exchange of views that could ultimately lead to an agreement,” she stated to NatSec Daily.
One European official noted that the likelihood of reaching a compromise with Belgium, which opposes the use of frozen assets, has significantly decreased recently.
Discussion on reparations loan and Belgium’s position
According to Politico, the US hopes to return frozen Russian assets after a peace agreement is signed. However, European officials express dissatisfaction that part of the funds may go to the US, while the rest would be split between Washington and Moscow.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that the American side proposes not to confiscate the assets for providing Ukraine with the so-called “reparations loan,” but to keep them for future negotiations with Russia.
At the same time, as reported by Politico, Belgium did not support the idea of using Russian assets to finance the loan, considering the guarantees from the European Commission insufficient. According to Euractiv, seven EU countries—Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Bulgaria, Malta, and the Czech Republic—do not support the confiscation of frozen Russian assets.
In early December, the European Commission proposed two funding mechanisms for Ukraine: obtaining a loan backed by the EU budget and a reparations loan of 210 billion euros from Russian assets. The total amount of blocked Russian assets in the West since the start of the war is approximately 260 billion euros, most of which is held in the Belgian depository Euroclear.
On December 12, the EU decided to indefinitely freeze these funds. At the same time, the Bank of Russia filed a lawsuit against Euroclear in the Moscow Arbitration Court for over 18 trillion rubles.
In this context, Fitch agency placed Euroclear Bank on Rating Watch Negative due to increasing legal and liquidity risks associated with the potential use of frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank. However, even if such a scenario were to be realized, Fitch considers the risks for the depository to be low, maintaining its credit rating at AA, indicating high solvency and low probability of default.
Earlier, it was reported that the initial US peace plan, consisting of 28 points, included investing 100 billion dollars of frozen Russian assets into Ukraine’s recovery programs under Washington’s management, with the US receiving 50% of the profits. The remaining assets were planned to be directed into a joint US-Russian investment mechanism, but this point was later removed from the document.