Bloomberg: the EU found legal grounds for the transfer of part of the assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation to Ukraine

The European Union has found legal grounds for using part of the frozen assets of the Central Bank of Russia for the restoration of Ukraine. We are talking about an amount of at least 33.8 billion euros, which are in the EU, informs Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to the interlocutors, the lawyers of the European Commission said that the funds can be used under certain conditions. In particular, the assets must not be expropriated, which means that they will later have to be returned to Russia. In addition, only liquid Russian assets can be directed to the restoration of Ukraine, the sources add.

Commenting on information from Bloomberg sources about a mechanism that allows legal use of part of Russian assets in favor of Ukraine, Andriy Klishas, ​​head of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building of the Federation Council, stressed that there are no legal grounds for seizing these funds in the EU.

“The poor “European lawyers” did not find “clear legal grounds” for the arrest of Russian assets (but they are arrested in the EU, without grounds), but they found an opportunity to “temporarily” use Russian assets to restore Ukraine. The operation to legalize the stolen shamefully failed, ”- wrote he is in the Telegram channel.

The possibility of using the blocked assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in the European Union has been discussed for a long time. According to Bloomberg, the proposal is controversial, as the EU is concerned about the legality of such a step and the precedent that could be created if the assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation are used.

In mid-March, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that as a result of the sanctions, Russia has lost access to almost half of its own gold and foreign exchange reserves abroad. It was about $300 billion.

In November 2022, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen suggested create a structure for managing Russian assets. According to her, the blocked funds of the Russian Central Bank and the assets of Russian oligarchs confiscated due to sanctions should be combined into a fund, the funds of which should be invested, and the profit from these investments should be used for compensation payments to Ukraine. She clarified that, in addition to 300 billion euros of reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Western countries have blocked 19 billion euros of private funds of Russian businessmen.