{"id":524935,"date":"2025-10-24T14:38:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/524935\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:38:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:38:14","slug":"eu-not-ready-to-raid-russian-assets-for-ukraine-loan-belgian-commissioner-says-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/524935\/","title":{"rendered":"EU \u2018not ready\u2019 to raid Russian assets for Ukraine loan, Belgian commissioner says \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lahbib’s comments followed the collapse of a plan<\/a> to raid Russia\u2019s sovereign assets that have been immobilized in the EU since the start of Vladimir Putin\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Under the proposal, the money would be sent to Kyiv as a \u201creparations loan,\u201d only due for repayment in the unlikely event that Russia pays war damages in future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever blocked the plan at a European Council leaders\u2019 summit in Brussels on Thursday night because he feared his country would face legal and financial retaliation from Putin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not ready,\u201d said Lahbib, who holds the humanitarian aid and crisis management portfolio, when asked why the proposal was delayed. \u201cIt\u2019s unprecedented. It is the first time that we are doing so, so we are in the territory that we need to explore very carefully to deal with all the potential consequences.”<\/p>\n

The assets, she said, belong to Russia’s central bank and are protected under international law, which must be respected. “Belgium but also other member states are aware that we need to go forward cautiously,” she said.<\/p>\n

Lahbib said she would not \u201cname and shame\u201d the other EU countries where Russian assets are deposited, but questioned whether they were playing their full part in using the interest from these assets to help Ukraine in the way Belgium has done.\u00a0Deposits are also held in France, Luxembourg and Germany, among other countries. <\/p>\n

The European Commission, the bloc\u2019s executive arm, will now work up detailed proposals for how to help Ukraine plug its funding shortfall. If \u20ac140 billion in Russian assets is eventually sent to Kyiv, it will meet Kyiv\u2019s needs for at least the next two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

EU leaders have pledged to look again at what options the Commission proposes \u2014 including using the assets \u2014 when they next meet in December. Asked if the plan would be ready to be approved by then, Lahbib sounded cautious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have the good lawyers, the good system, the support of the G7, the 27 member states and all of them ready to take the responsibility with Belgium, it can go quickly,\u201d she said. \u201cAsk the others. Are they ready?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lahbib’s comments followed the collapse of a plan to raid Russia\u2019s sovereign assets that have been immobilized in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[331,15856,1789,6725,2000,299,5187,1699,36,1824,58868,1215,332,7339,657,333,771,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-524935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-banks","9":"tag-bart-de-wever","10":"tag-belgium","11":"tag-central-banks","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-france","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-hadja-lahbib","19":"tag-luxembourg","20":"tag-russia","21":"tag-russia-sanctions","22":"tag-ukraine","23":"tag-vladimir-putin","24":"tag-war","25":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115429658053616129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524935","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=524935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}