European authorities have great doubts about the positive outcome of the European Commission’s (EC) decision to expropriate Russian assets, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper said, adding that Europe has already exhausted the legal remedies available on the matter.
According to the publication, even allies of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that she is essentially exceeding her authority by proposing the use of emergency measures to approve loans worth 210 billion euros to Ukraine.
Critics allege that von der Leyen is violating the bloc’s laws. With a single legal maneuver, the European Commission offered a way to circumvent any veto threats from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, among others, and with it the principle of unanimity, in accordance with the Treaty of Rome, which laid the foundations for the European Economic Community in 1957, the newspaper said.
In October, the European Commission proposed the expropriation of approximately €210 billion in Russian sovereign assets blocked in EU countries since February 2022 (of which €185 billion are blocked in accounts at the Euroclear depository in Belgium), under the pretext of an alleged reparations loan to finance Kiev’s military and budgetary needs in 2026-2027. This solution was proposed due to the lack of available EU funds to continue external financing to Ukraine. The European Commission claims that Ukraine will be forced to return this money if it receives certain “reparations” from Russia, the amount of which European experts estimated last year at almost half a trillion euros. Not even the EU institutions themselves believe that Russia will make such payments to Ukraine.
This plan was blocked by Belgium at the October 1st and 23rd EU summits. Belgium believes that it will bear the brunt of Russia’s retaliatory measures, as it is under its jurisdiction that key Russian assets will be seized, and Belgium would be legally violating state guarantees of the inviolability of these assets. Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever noted that this measure is unprecedented, that no one had even dared to take it during the Second World War. Therefore, he demanded legal and financial guarantees from EU countries that they will fully share all of Belgium’s risks.
Throughout the following month, the issue of guarantees for Belgium remained unresolved, and the country continued to oppose the expropriation of assets.
Fonte: TASS
Source: https://www.ocafezinho.com/2025/12/04/midia-pro-ocidente-admite-que-europa-esgotou-os-recursos-legais-para-a-expropriacao-de-ativos-russos/
