De Wever: European Commission will no longer propose using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine

The European Commission will no longer propose expropriating frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine. This was stated by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

According to De Wever, the European Commission is not letting through proposals for new mechanisms for using frozen Russian assets to cover Ukraine's financial needs. He is certain of this, as reported by the Ukrainian outlet delo.ua. In his words, the European Commission will not return to the discussion of handing frozen Russian assets over to Ukraine.

De Wever believes that the leaders of some EU countries may try to return to this topic only out of ignorance. If anyone keeps talking about it, in his assessment, it is because they are uninformed.

Belgium, according to its prime minister, holds most of these funds, and in Brussels they are confident in the European Commission's position.

The issue concerns Belgium directly. In November 2022, Politico reported that the European Union had frozen Russian assets worth 68 billion euros. Most of them, according to these data, were in Belgium (about 50 billion) and Luxembourg (5.5 billion). In May 2023, then Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said at a press conference in The Hague that the country would send Ukraine 200 million euros received from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets.