Ukraine Calls on EU to Open Access to Profits Generated by Frozen Russian Assets
Following talks with the Belgian government, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on international partners to find a way to access the profits generated by frozen Russian assets.
This is stated on the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
"Belgium has set a precedent, a very good precedent for excess profits. Now we need a broader legal framework, approved at the European Union level, to allow all member states that hold Russian sovereign assets to use them in a legally compatible way to restore Ukraine," the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said at a joint press conference with Belgian Foreign Minister Aja Labib.
It is worth noting that Belgium is holding the largest share of frozen Russian assets - 180 billion euros, which have been blocked in the Belgian clearing house Euroclear.
Due to rising inflation and lending rates, frozen funds are generating much higher returns than before. Thus, in just nine months of 2023, the amount of excess profit reached three billion euros.
At the same time, the Belgian authorities have declared their unwillingness to allocate these funds for the reconstruction of Ukraine, instead waiting for a common consensus for the entire European Union and the so-called G7.
Earlier, as The Gaze reported, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said that Belgium would send €1.7bn to Ukraine from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets. The funds will come from taxes paid on the interest generated by millions of frozen Russian assets.
In June 2023, the media reported that the EU was looking for ways to tax profits from frozen Russian assets. It was expected that the amount of windfall profits could reach €3 billion.
As previously reported by The Gaze, since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the governments of the EU and G7 countries have frozen about €300 billion worth of foreign assets of the Central Bank of Russia and private assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs. These funds were assumed to be used to compensate for the damage caused by Russia to Ukraine, but the mechanism for their transfer is still being developed.