The French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, is hoping to reach an agreement with his counterparts from the G7 countries on the use of windfall profits generated by frozen Russian public assets, at their meeting in Stresa (Italy) at the end of the week.
We need to make the best possible use, as far upstream as possible, of the profits from these assets, he told journalists on Wednesday 22 May. He welcomed “the evolution” of the United States’ position on the issue.
Instead of advocating the mobilisation of frozen Russian public assets, the US authorities are now advocating mobilising only the current and future profits from these assets to borrow up to $50 billion on a leveraged basis to support Ukraine in the face of Russian military aggression.
The EU has set up a scheme to mobilise the profits generated by the Bank of Russia’s assets, estimated at €3 billion a year (see EUROPE 13413/21). In 2024, 90% of this budget will be allocated to the Ukrainian war effort.
For the French Finance Ministry, any solution agreed at G7 level must “comply with international law and protect financial stability”.
China. “It is vital that the G7 Finance Group pulls together” to “re-establish fairer trade relations” between the major Western economies and China, whose “overcapacity” threatens to flood our markets, said Mr Le Maire. In his view, granting access to the single market is “an asset that must be negotiated” in order to obtain greater “reciprocity”.
On tax issues, the minister reiterated that he would be leading a new battle at the OECD for “minimum taxation of large fortunes”, the third pillar of international tax reform. “We’ll get there”, he said. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)