“The European Union privately accuses the Belgian government of hiding tax revenues from frozen Russian assets stored in the country.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Source: “European Truth” with reference to Politico
Details: Five diplomats from different European countries believe that Belgium, by blocking a scheme with a “reparation loan” to Ukraine, may be pursuing a secondary goal by keeping the funds in its jurisdiction, as taxes from them go to the country’s national budget.
According to them, Belgium violates the international obligation, adopted last year, to disclose information about what it does with the taxes from the frozen rockets that should go to Ukraine.
Diplomats said that this money still goes to the national budget of Belgium, so it is impossible to determine whether Brussels fully fulfills its obligations to Kyiv. Belgium categorically denies doing anything wrong.
The interlocutors noted that if Belgium continues to refuse the use of rockets in favor of Ukraine, EU member states will increasingly use meetings on the eve of the European Council summit to raise questions about whether Belgium is profiting from tax revenues or delaying payments to Ukraine.
They also question whether Belgium uses regular tax revenues to support Ukraine, as other European countries do, or simply relies on taxes on Russian assets.
“Given this constant delay, the question arises whether it is really clear that the security of Europe is at stake. And given the data, there are doubts whether Belgium is fulfilling its promise to send emergency tax revenues to Ukraine,” said one of the EU diplomats.
The money is hard to track, but diplomats who question the numbers cite sources such as the Kiel Institute, which estimates Belgium’s total aid to Ukraine at €3.44 billion from the start of the war to August 31, 2025. For comparison: the tax on Russian assets in 2024 alone amounted to 1.7 billion euros.
The Belgian government rejected the diplomats’ criticism, saying that all taxes received from Russian reserves were “directed” to Ukraine.
“The Belgian government has committed to allocating all corporate tax revenues from interest income from frozen Russian assets in Euroclear to support Ukraine. For 2025, these revenues are currently estimated at approximately 1 billion euros,” said the Belgian official.
The government emphasized that the money paid to Ukraine came from the sources of the federal government of Belgium, and not from the tax on assets.
“In addition to the full use of the corporate tax on excess profits, which is fully used for military support to Ukraine, the Belgian federal government has provided military and other aid to Ukraine in the amount of slightly less than 1 billion euros since 2022,” the Belgian official noted.
Since the Russian assets are held in the Brussels-based Euroclear depository, the Belgian government levies a 25 percent corporate tax on the interest earned on those assets.
“[Ці] the funds are fully intended for Ukraine and are directed to the provision of military support (military equipment, training, etc.), as well as a limited number of civilian goods, such as ambulances,” the interlocutor continued.
Part of the frustration among Belgium’s EU allies is that this lack of transparency should have been resolved last year.
In 2024, several Western countries accused the Belgian government of using part of the tax revenue from assets to cover ordinary budget needs.
In response to this criticism, the previous Belgian government promised to transfer tax revenues to the EU and G7 financial instrument for Ukraine. But Belgium never fulfilled this promise.
When asked why it does not use a special tool to ensure transparency about these funds, the Belgian government did not respond.
A second high-ranking EU diplomat critical of Belgium had an explanation: “The tax revenue was already part of their domestic budget and they didn’t want to give it up.”
Earlier it became known that the Prime Minister of Belgium, Bart de Wever, wrote a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in which he sharply criticizes the proposed scheme with the use of frozen rockets in support of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the media reported that European countries developing a “plan B” in case they cannot agree to use frozen Russian assets to provide a reparation loan to Ukraine so that the country is not left without funding in early 2026.