On Tuesday 23 April, representatives of the EPP, S&D, Renew Europe and ECR groups in the European Parliament voted in favour of confiscating all Russian assets frozen in the European Union since the start of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and not just the profits generated annually by these assets.
In a debate during the European Parliament plenary session, Andrius Kubilius (EPP, Lithuanian), Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz (S&D, Polish), Petras Auštrevičius (Renew Europe, Lithuanian) and Ryszard Czarnecki (ECR, Polish) argued that Russia, as the aggressor country, must pay for the destruction caused to Ukraine. They criticised the reluctance of Europeans to take this step at a time when the United States is pushing for it at G7 level. Mr Kubilius rejected the argument that confiscating frozen assets would infringe private property rights, as the United States had already done so in relation to Iran in 1981 and Iraq in 1992.
Speaking on behalf of the Greens/EFA group, Germany’s Sergey Lagodinsky said that a legal solution still had to be found on how to use frozen Russian assets and that ultimately any decision would have to come from a general court.
Katarína Roth Neveďalová (non-attached, Slovakian) urged her counterparts to be sensible. “The European Union is not Robin Hood”, she warned, denying that the EU was violating international law.
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, pointed out that the European Commission had only proposed mobilising the profits generated by the assets of the Central Bank of Russia frozen in the EU, estimated at €3 billion a year. The EU Council is expected to reach a unanimous agreement on this legislative proposal in early May (see EUROPE 13392/20).
For the time being, it is following the advice of legal experts, who have clarified that the seizure of the profits generated by the frozen assets complies with international law, according to Mr Borrell. And, at this stage, it will not be proposing to seize the capital “because there is not enough clarity on what we can and cannot do”.
The High Representative assured the Parliament that his services would continue to seek advice to see what more could be done, because “we would be very happy to seize €300 billion”. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)