The EC president\u2019s initiative to use the frozen funds to back a loan for Kiev has raised legal concerns<\/p>\n
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s scheme to use frozen Russian assets to back a loan for Ukraine is \u201ccrazy\u201d due to the inevitable financial and legal risks, unnamed senior EU officials have told the Financial Times.
\nAfter the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, EU countries froze around \u20ac210 billion ($245 billion) in Russian central bank assets, including \u20ac185 billion at Belgian-based Euroclear.
\nOn Wednesday, von der Leyen submitted two proposals to finance Ukraine: EU-level borrowing, which is likely to be blocked because it requires unanimous support; or a \u2018reparations loan\u2019, which is more viable as it only needs a qualified majority to pass.
\nAccording to one official cited by the newspaper, EU lawyers consider \u201cthe option of the reparations loan the worst of all\u201d due to inevitable risks from a legal and financial perspective.
\n\u201dIt\u2019s crazy and I don\u2019t understand how they think they will get away with this,\u201d a senior member state official said, adding that \u201cthe precedent that you set with this could have wide-ranging ramifications.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Cashing in on war: Why stealing Russia\u2019s assets actually makes things worse for the EU<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you ask me if we\u2019re driving straight into a wall, then the answer is yes,\u201d another senior EU official told the outlet.
\nBelgium has mounted the strongest resistance to von der Leyen\u2019s plan, warning that the scheme involves serious financial and legal risks and has demanded that its EU partners share the responsibility for the fallout. The other major holders of Russian assets within the bloc, including France, Luxembourg, and Germany, reportedly continue to oppose an outright seizure, as do other states such as Italy, Hungary, and Slovakia.
\nRussia has denounced the use of its sovereign assets as theft and warned that any seizure would trigger far-reaching legal and retaliatory consequences. Earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the freeze itself is illegal, adding that Moscow would take any expropriation to an international court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The EC president\u2019s initiative to use the frozen funds to back a loan for Kiev has raised legal concerns European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s scheme to use frozen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}