The EU will create a special group to confiscate Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine
This will be voted on February 15
The European Union will set up a special working group to confiscate Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine. The working group will be created by the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the European Union. This is stated in the agenda of the committee's meeting to be held on February 15.
Source. Interfax-Ukraine.
Details. As follows from the agenda, this approval will take place without discussion, the publication reports. The text does not specify which assets are in question.
However, recently, the heads of EU institutions have repeatedly made statements that Russian assets should be used to restore Ukraine, the publication says.
Also, on the eve of the EU summit on February 9, an EU official told reporters that EU leaders planned to move forward with the use of frozen Russian assets as part of their discussion of assistance to Ukraine. But it is not about confiscation of funds, he said.
"This is a sanctions regime, not a confiscation regime. The sanctions regime means that you can use the money, but you have to return it when the policy changes," the official said.
He also noted that these assets, worth approximately €300 billion, are distributed in various financial structures.
The official confirmed that this money "cannot be spent irrevocably," the publication says.
"What can be done is to use it. To make a profit from 300 billion euros and use these funds for recovery. (...) This is the theory. But this must be done concretely. First, you need to identify these funds, get access to them, determine the mechanism (of use)," the publication quoted an EU official as saying.
On January 20, it was reported that Switzerland was ready to transfer frozen assets to Russia for the restoration of Ukraine, but banks opposed such an initiative, believing that it would undermine trust.
Switzerland has already frozen 7.2 billion euros worth of Russian assets.
On January 9, the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice announced that the country would not transfer Russian assets to Ukraine without the EU's approval.
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