EU ambassadors have reached a preliminary agreement on a proposal by the European Commission regarding the utilization of funds from frozen Russian assets, as announced by the Belgian EU Council Presidency.
This development follows an earlier statement by Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem, who indicated that the EU had initiated technical preparations to enact the Commission’s proposal from the previous year.
This proposal aims to allocate the earnings from Russia’s frozen sovereign assets for Ukraine’s benefit. The announcement was made on the social media platform X, highlighting the consensus on using unexpected gains from immobilized assets to aid in Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts.
The sanctions imposed by the Western countries, led by the US, in response to Russia’s military actions, have resulted in the freezing of Russian assets estimated at around EUR 300 billion ($329 billion), with the majority, about EUR 200 billion ($221 billion), located within the EU, mainly in Euroclear accounts.
Russian Foreign Ministry recently asserted that any potential confiscation of Russian real estate and assets would be an “outright theft.”
“We have spoken more than once about the illegitimacy of unilateral coercive measures taken by Western countries about Russian property abroad,” the statement read.
“We have repeatedly noted that the seizure of property of the Russian Federation is unlawful and violates the fundamental principles and norms of international law, including the sovereign equality of states,” the ministry insisted.
In December 2023, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cautioned that Western countries would face consequences should they divert Russia’s frozen assets to support Ukraine.
