{"id":449489,"date":"2025-09-25T03:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/449489\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T03:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:46:12","slug":"germany-backs-eus-creative-plan-to-send-frozen-russian-cash-to-ukraine-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/449489\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany backs EU\u2019s \u2018creative\u2019 plan to send frozen Russian cash to Ukraine \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Supporters of the Commission\u2019s plan claim that it would be legally secure as it wouldn&#8217;t technically expropriate the Russian assets themselves. But some, including the firm holding the cash, Euroclear, fear it will expose them to legal risk.<\/p>\n<p>French President Emmanuel Macron also struck a more cautious note, saying in an interview earlier this week that \u201cyou cannot seize these assets from the (Russian)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kyivindependent.com\/tag\/russian-central-bank\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Central Bank<\/a>\u201d because it would violate international laws.<\/p>\n<p>The German government, on the other hand, is keen to use the \u201creparations loan\u201d to offer military support to Ukraine\u00a0as opposed to rebuilding damaged buildings and infrastructure, three officials with knowledge of the talks told POLITICO.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The \u20ac<\/strong><strong>172 billion question<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The bulk of the Russian assets are held by the Brussels-based financial firm Euroclear and are invested in Western government bonds that have matured into cash.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission suggested using this cash \u2014\u00a0which amounts to \u20ac172 billion, according to two officials with knowledge of proceedings \u2014\u00a0to fund a \u201creparations loan\u201d to Ukraine, while leaving \u20ac13 billion of underlying assets untouched.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2236989381-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7219764\"  \/>The U.S.\u2019s disengagement from Ukraine under President Donald Trump has added pressure on the EU to step up. | Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>With Ukraine facing a gaping budget shortfall next year, the Commission sees this solution as the last chance to support the war-torn country without tapping into taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Supporters of the Commission\u2019s plan claim that it would be legally secure as it wouldn&#8217;t technically expropriate the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[331,3420,1194,28,6725,472,32,34,2000,299,1945,39,6084,151199,2597,657,771,335,1116],"class_list":{"0":"post-449489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-banks","9":"tag-bonds","10":"tag-budget","11":"tag-buildings","12":"tag-central-banks","13":"tag-christine-lagarde","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-emmanuel-macron","16":"tag-eu","17":"tag-europe","18":"tag-friedrich-merz","19":"tag-fuels","20":"tag-infrastructure","21":"tag-michael-clauss","22":"tag-military","23":"tag-ukraine","24":"tag-war","25":"tag-war-in-ukraine","26":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115262887662986694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}