The powers that be in Brussels have decided to give Ukraine a new €35 billion loan – a loan to be repaid with the proceeds of Russian assets previously seized in the EU.
– Russia must pay for attacking Ukrainians and brutally destroying the country’s infrastructure, towns, villages and homes, said Liberal MEP Karin Karlsbro, calling the country a “robber state”.
By 518 votes to 56, MEPs approved the new loan, which will be secured by Russian central bank assets seized and frozen after the start of the war in Ukraine.
– Ukraine continues to resist Russian aggression, and its brave citizens are fighting not only for their own existence and freedom, but in defence of our democracy, human rights, freedom and international law. The need for financial support is both huge and urgent, said Karlsbro in a press release.
“Now the EU is forcing Russia to pay an advance on war reparations“, she writes in a comment to Omni.
“Theft and robbery”
Moscow condemns the decision as outright theft, and Russia’s EU ambassador, Kirill Logvinov, says the EU is committing “economic crimes on a global scale”.
Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha agrees, saying that “The freezing of Russian assets is theft and robbery” – no matter what euphemisms you use to describe it.
– You can find hundreds of justifications for this, but this is theft… Europe did not steal American assets at the time of the unjustified aggression against Iraq, will we do the same with Israeli assets? he asked during a plenary session in Strasbourg, referring to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
Could damage EU credibility
The decision to hand over confiscated Russian funds to Kiev has also been condemned, as it risks undermining the EU’s credibility as an economic partner. If Russian assets can be arbitrarily seized and handed over to someone else, other countries perceived as unsavoury could also suffer, critics say.
In practice, this could increase the reluctance of non-European countries to place assets within the Union’s borders and turn to other actors instead.