Germany, France, UK Plan to Arrest €200bn of Russia's Frozen Assets in Europe

Germany, France and the United Kingdom are considering seizing €200 billion of Russia's assets frozen in Europe to use as leverage in negotiations to end Russia's war in Ukraine. 

This was reported by a number of European media outlets, citing their own sources. 

Germany and France are currently discussing with the UK how Russian assets could be used to provide Ukraine with security guarantees as part of a plan for a future peace agreement. 

For its part, France has offered to seize assets if Russia attempts to violate the future ceasefire.

On Thursday, 6 March, the European Council is scheduled to hold a summit on defence and Ukraine, where EU leaders will discuss ways to finance the growing military spending.

In order to give a significant boost to all European defence budgets, the French president called on the bloc to raid EU cohesion funds and existing funding programmes ‘that are not being used’.

‘We must give the Commission a mandate to use innovative financing. This means either joint borrowing or the European Stability Mechanism... first of all, we need €200 billion to be able to invest,’ he said.

As The Gaze previously reported, after the summit of European leaders on Ukraine in London, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the European Commission would soon present a plan for rearming Europe.