The European Union has stopped discussing the issue of confiscating frozen Russian assets. This is stated in the final document of the EU summit of March 20, which was obtained by Deutsche Welle.
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“In accordance with EU law, Russian assets must remain immobilized until Russia ends its aggressive war against Ukraine and compensates it for the damage caused by this war,” the document says.
A number of countries are against the confiscation of Russian assets
Several EU countries opposed the confiscation of more than 200 billion euros of Russian sovereign assets.
They argued their position with EU legislation, the danger of such a precedent for European competitiveness in the financial services market, the need to support Ukraine with interest from these funds, and also the fact that this amount is a “card” in peace negotiations and a means of influencing Russia.
At the same time, the EU is ready to further increase pressure on Russia, in particular by introducing additional sanctions and strengthening control over compliance with existing measures, in order to weaken its ability to wage war against Ukraine, the document says.
“We are starting to think about the endgame in Ukraine, about peace talks, a ceasefire, a peace agreement that could be signed in three months or three years. And people are starting to understand that having these assets may be more important than confiscating them without knowing what to do with them,” he said.
Let us recall
On March 18, 2025, the UK and the EU began talks on how to confiscate frozen Russian assets to increase pressure on Russia ahead of possible peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.
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