Ursula von Der Leyen was Germany's Defense Minister before she got the EU Commission job
Sep 20, 2025
Saturday, August 30, 2025
NOT POLITICALLY REALISTIC: Kallas Takes A Deep Dive in Denmark --- EU cannot agree on transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine
EU to work on using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine after war
By Andrew Gray
[1/5]
COPENHAGEN,
Aug 30 (Reuters) - The European Union will examine how to use frozen
Russian assets to fund Ukraine's defense and reconstruction after the
war but confiscating them now is not politically realistic, EU foreign
policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Saturday.
- Some 210 billion euros ($245.85 billion) of Russian assets are frozen in the bloc under sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, according to the EU.
Ukraine
and some EU countries, including Estonia, Lithuania and Poland, have
said the assets should be seized now and used to support Kyiv.
Those
calls have intensified as Ukraine faces a funding gap of tens of billions of euros for next year alone.
Most
of the assets are held in Euroclear, a securities depository in
Belgium, whose foreign minister, Maxime Prevot, said any seizure was out
of the question for now.
- "Those assets are solidly protected under international law," he told reporters in Copenhagen.
- "Confiscating them would trigger systemic financial instability and also erode trust in the euro."
Prevot
also rejected calls for a change in the investment strategy for the
profits from the assets, with the aim of securing higher yields. He said
that would be too risky, financially and legally.
Last
year, the G7 group of nations - including the EU - agreed to use the
profits generated by the assets to fund a $50 billion loan for Ukraine.
"Belgium
and many other countries are not willing to discuss (taking the assets)
now ... but everybody agrees ... that Russia should pay for the
damages, not our taxpayers,"
--- Kallas said.
EU mulls using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine
Kallas: EU can't give back frozen assets to Russia, unless they pay reparations to Ukraine
The
EU's foreign policy chief said the bloc needs to dive deep into the
issue of frozen Russian assets, to be prepared in case of an eventual
ceasefire or peace deal.
Feature
| Ukraine
Erscheinungsdatum: 29. August 2025
Sanctions package: EU plans to make better use of Russian state bank funds
Kaja Kallas will chair the informal Foreign Affairs
Council in Copenhagen today and tomorrow. (dpa)
In Copenhagen, the defense and foreign ministers are looking
for ways to further tighten the sanctions regime against Russia and
increase support for Ukraine. Calls to make better use of Russian state
bank funds are growing in volume.
Sweden disappointed EU cannot agree on transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine
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