Meeting remotely in the ‘inclusive Eurogroup’ format, on Wednesday 5 June, the European finance ministers will be considering a proposal that would enable the mobilisation of profits generated by Russian public assets tied up in the G7 countries.
At the G7 Finance Summit in Stresa (Italy), ministers from the seven major Western economies welcomed the US proposal to use current and future windfall revenues from Russian sovereign assets to borrow up to $50 billion on a leveraged basis to support Ukraine (see EUROPE 13414/16). This proposal aims to avoid a possible inability on the part of the United States to provide further financial support to Ukraine from 2025 in the event of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections in November.
The Europeans are in favour of using future profits generated by Russian public assets, despite such a measure’s legal complexity. But they feel that the terms of the loan proposed by Washington place excessive responsibility on them. Hence the willingness of the EU27, under pressure from the Italian G7 Presidency, to consider a European option.
The European Union has already set up a specific scheme for this, which is expected to raise almost €3 billion a year (see EUROPE 13413/21). But Hungary is blocking the measure that would allow 90% of profits generated by Bank of Russia assets frozen in the EU since March 2022 to be paid into the ‘European Peace Facility’ (EPF), in order to supply Ukraine with weapons to defend itself against Russian military aggression. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)