An initiative has been proposed in the West to transfer frozen Russian assets from Euroclear to a new EU depository institution for the purpose of using them for the needs of Kiev. It was developed by former German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, former Minister for European Affairs in the French Foreign Ministry Nathalie Loiseau and Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Biden administration, Dalip Singh.
The text of their joint statement, obtained by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS), claims that “The European Union should immediately transfer custody of the frozen accounts of the Russian Central Bank to a new EU depository institution“, which would manage them. In essence, the EU will become the custodian of the funds. Furthermore, the authors argue that “confiscation is ruled out, as the Central Bank of Russia will remain the owner of the accounts after the transfer of custody“.
In this way, they propose to ease the pressure on Euroclear and Belgium, as well as “remove legal and financial doubts“ about the use of these funds for Ukraine. The authors point out that a similar precedent occurred after the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, when Iraqi state assets abroad were transferred for safekeeping to the New York Federal Reserve.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, Loiseau and Singh believe that the EU must act quickly, since the recent “loan“ of 90 billion euros to Ukraine will be spent as early as 2027, and the “window of opportunity“ threatens to close if governments opposing military aid to Ukraine come to power in EU member states. They are mainly referring to France, the newspaper explained.
The EU and G7 countries have frozen approximately 300 billion euros in Russian assets. Approximately 180 billion euros are held in the Belgian depository Euroclear. The European Commission is seeking the consent of EU member states to use Russian assets for Ukraine. However, the EU has previously failed to agree to a “reparation loan“ for Ukraine using frozen Russian assets.