It is slowly dawning on the EU that it cannot do what it wants with Russia’s confiscated assets. However, this knowledge is only gaining ground by the millimeter. It takes longer for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She wants to use frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine: “The perpetrators must be held accountable,” she says, and believes that everyone nods.
Because morally she sees herself on the right side. With its war of aggression, Russia has reduced parts of Ukraine to rubble. The cost of reconstruction is gigantic: Experts estimate more than one trillion euros. In order to raise this sum, the EU Commission also wants to use frozen Russian assets.
$200 billion in Russian central bank reserves lying around. They are kept by the Belgian asset manager Euroclear on behalf of the EU. They brought in 700 million euros in interest in the first quarter alone. A pretty penny, thought the President of the Commission.
Transfer interest earnings from frozen balances of the Central Bank of Russia to Ukraine
Their plan: to transfer interest income from frozen assets held by the Russian central bank to Ukraine. And if that doesn’t work, the EU officials have hatched another option on behalf of their boss: Euroclear could also be taxed and the revenues from this tax made available to Ukraine.
What is morally self-evident for some is simply forbidden by law for others. The money still belongs to the Russians. And they are also entitled to the income from these assets. Everything else would have to be decided by a court, but not politics. The superiority of a functioning democracy is based precisely on this legal system.
ECB boss Lagarde opposes von der Leyen
The one who draws attention to this is von der Leyen’s otherwise reliable colleague Christine Lagarde. She stabs the EU leader in the back. The head of the European Central Bank lets them know that their plan is likely to “undermine the legal and economic foundations on which the international role of the euro rests”.
In other words: Von der Leyen destroys trust in the euro when she tramples on the law in moral overzealousness. Thank you for that clarification, dear Ms. Lagarde.
The contribution “Sorry, Mrs. von der Leyen, but these billions still belong to Russia” comes from economic courier.
