The EU is storing billions of frozen Russian central bank funds. The proceeds from this are to be passed on to Ukraine in the future. As the current Belgian EU Council Presidency announced, representatives of the 27 member states have agreed on a proposal. It now only needs to be formalized and then officially decided.
According to diplomats, the procedure envisages, as a first step, ensuring that the extraordinary proceeds from custody are kept separately. After that, it is planned to give part of the funds to those attacked by Russia Ukraine to forward. However, further legal texts still need to be developed for this.
Possibly billions for Ukraine
According to estimates, a sum in the billions could be incurred every year, since, according to the Commission, more than 200 billion from the Russian Central Bank have been frozen in the EU and the income from the custody of the capital is constantly increasing.
The Brussels-based financial institution Euroclear recently announced that it had made three billion euros in interest income in the first nine months of last year alone, which was linked to sanctions on Russia. Euroclear is the main institution in the EU that holds assets of the Russian central bank. EU officials emphasize that the project is initially only about revenue that Euroclear is making unscheduled because of EU sanctions against the Russian central bank. For the time being, no expropriation in the true sense is planned.
Russia warned the EU last year not to confiscate the property of the Russian state or Russian citizens. After Russian threats, it would be conceivable that… Russia companies operating in EU countries are forcibly expropriated. In addition, direct use of Russian assets could also lead to other states and investors losing trust in the European financial center and withdrawing assets from the EU.
The EU is storing billions of frozen Russian central bank funds. The proceeds from this are to be passed on to Ukraine in the future. As the current Belgian EU Council Presidency announced, representatives of the 27 member states have agreed on a proposal. It now only needs to be formalized and then officially decided.
According to diplomats, the procedure envisages, as a first step, ensuring that the extraordinary proceeds from custody are kept separately. After that, it is planned to give part of the funds to those attacked by Russia Ukraine to forward. However, further legal texts still need to be developed for this.