“The Belgian government fears that it will be responsible for any legal and financial claims filed by Russia and calls on all EU countries to guarantee a loan”, – WRITE: www.radiosvoboda.org
According to Politico, the Belgian government fears that it will be responsible for any legal and financial claims filed by Russia, and calls on all EU countries to guarantee a loan, which actually means the use of taxpayers’ money to cover any expenses.
“These guarantees cannot be limited to 170 billion euros in cash that the commission proposes to mobilize. The potential risk can be much higher than the nominal amount, ”said Prime Minister Belgium Bart de Wever EU leaders during an informal summit last week in Copenhagen, according to a statement received by Politico.
Brussels also added another condition – “The guarantees do not stop automatically after the sanctions are removed. Arbitration procedures can occur in years. ”
The statement – the list of the abstracts for discussions transmitted to European leaders on October 1 – described in detail the red lines of Belgium.
These include no measures that could be interpreted as asset confiscation; legally binding, strictly forced guarantees that European countries will share all current and future risks for both Europeanar and Belgium; And the immediate accumulation agreement if Europeanar has to return Russia’s assets, for example, after a peace agreement.
“The statement of Belgium Prime Minister has raised many difficult issues, and they are still being considered,” said a high-ranking EU diplomat, who has been given anonymity to talk about the content of the confidential statement.
The European Commission has proposed to use 175 billion euros of cash received from frozen Russian state assets invested in Western government bonds to finance a repair loan to Ukraine worth 140 billion euros and repay the previous G7 credit.
Currently, these funds are idle at the European Central Bank (ECB) under the leadership of Euroclear.
Among the 27 EU countries, Belgium has the highest share because it is the owner of the European Financial Depository, which preserves most of Russian state assets, frozen after a full -scale invasion of the country into Ukraine in February 2022.
Read also: The new idea of using Russian frozen assets in Ukraine. What is the EU dilemma?
On October 1 at a meeting in Copenhagen, EU leaders discussed the idea of providing Ukraine with a reparation loan, however, according to the media, they did not reach consent.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared October 2 that he sees a strong consensus among European leaders to support the use of frozen assets to assist Ukraine. He awaits a specific decision on this issue at the next EU leaders summit.