Russian assets frozen in the EU should be used to make war reparations to Ukraine, European Council President António Costa said on Tuesday, in remarks that contradict Belgium’s recent warning that the funds’ confiscation would constitute “an act of war”.
“We need to ensure that the aggressor pays for the results of their aggression,” Costa said at an event hosted by the European Policy Centre in Brussels.
“It’s important to protect these assets, to [keep] these assets under control, to ensure that in the future they will be used to pay the repairments (sic) of war,” he added.
The former Portuguese prime minister also cited “practical reasons” for keeping the frozen funds in Europe, in particular the fact that profits generated by the funds are currently being used to finance a $50 billion (€46 billion) loan deal to Ukraine, agreed by G7 leaders last year.
Around €300 billion in Russian central bank assets were frozen in the West following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Roughly €190 billion in assets are held in Euroclear, a Brussels-based clearing house.
A joint study published last month by the European Commission, the Ukrainian government, the World Bank, and the United Nations estimated that Ukraine’s total reconstruction costs from the war will amount to €506 billion over the next decade.
Costa’s remarks come just days after Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever warned that confiscating the assets would make Moscow “angry” and pose “systemic risks to the entire financial world system.”
“Seizing frozen assets… it is an act of war if you do that,” De Wever said following a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
“And I think the Russians will be angry if you will do this, and that they have means to react that they are already planning to do so,” he added, noting that confiscating the assets, as opposed to using the profits derived from them, is “extremely judicially complicated.”
“It seems to be very just: take the money, you give it to Ukraine for reconstruction, seems to be very just. But we’re not living in a world of fantasy. This is the real world where if you take €200 billion from somebody, there will be consequences,” De Wever explained.
The assets’ seizure is strongly backed by Eastern European member states and has not been ruled out by the European Commission. Belgium, meanwhile, is supported by the Netherlands and Luxembourg in opposing their confiscation.
A Belgian government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
[OM]