The website warns that any attempt to enforce this decision will lead to a sharp division within the European Union.
The website stated that Belgium, Hungary, and Slovakia, which rejected the plan from the beginning, have now been joined by Italy, Bulgaria, Malta, and the Czech Republic. “Euractiv” indicates that these latter four countries oppose the plan due to the positions of their governments, which strongly support the administration of US President Donald Trump, and believe that confiscating Russian assets may weaken the chances of reaching a quick settlement in Ukraine.
The website had previously drawn attention to the fact that the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, will make a decisive decision on Thursday during the European Summit in Brussels, either to abandon the plan or to move forward with pushing it, noting that both options “will lead to severe political damage to the European Union, and threaten internal division.”
In this context, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Cristina Kallas, affirmed upon her arrival at the meeting of the foreign ministers of the member states in Brussels, that the ratification of the “compensatory loan” is becoming more complicated. However, she indicated that the Commission intends to take the decision by a qualified majority, but added: “Without the support of Belgium, it will be difficult, because the majority of the frozen Russian assets fall under Belgian jurisdiction.”
It should be noted that a qualified majority in the Council of the European Union requires the approval of at least 16 countries (i.e., 60% of the member states), representing at least 55% of the EU population. Consequently, the seven opposing countries, even if they banded together, do not legally have the capacity to block the adoption of the decision.
Permanent Freezing Instead of Confiscation
In Belgium, where the Euroclear platform holds about 185 billion euros out of the 210 billion euros of frozen Russian assets in the EU, the government voted on Friday in favor of freezing these assets indefinitely, but still explicitly rejects any attempt to confiscate them.
In this context, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever had described the confiscation as “theft,” and stressed that these assets should remain permanently frozen in his country, generating financial returns to be used to support Ukraine.
Previous reports also indicated that De Wever’s predecessor, Alexander De Croo, revealed in 2023 that Belgium imposes a tax of up to about 30% on the returns resulting from reinvesting these assets, which generates annual revenues exceeding one billion euros for the state treasury — information that Brussels often avoids addressing.
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