The European Union seeks to raise 3 billion euros a year, for the benefit of Ukraine, by taxing interest generated by the frozen assets of the Russian central bank, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday.
“We are working on a profit tax” on frozen Russian assets in the EU, Alexander De Croo said, after a summit of European leaders in Brussels. This tax would free up “three billion euros a year that could be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine,” he said.
Home to the headquarters of the international deposit organization Euroclear, Belgium is home to 90% of the 200 billion euros in Russian central bank assets frozen under sanctions imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine. “There is a political consensus, now we have to work on this technically,” Alexander De Croo explained.
“terribly complicated”
According to a European diplomat, of the 200,000 million frozen assets, the idea would be to seize the entirety of approximately 3% annual interest generated by the 100,000 million in cash. The European Commission “will propose a tax on the fixed assets of the Central Bank of Russia”, confirmed the president of the European Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, during a press conference.
However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been very cautious about the possibility of succeeding in this project, which requires the unanimity of all 27 EU member states. “It’s all terribly complicated. Nobody knows at the moment what is possible, or how. We have asked the Commission to investigate the matter and notify us when they reach a conclusion,” he said, he declares.
In its conclusions, the European summit simply claims to have “taken stock of the work carried out in relation to Russia’s fixed assets” and invited the Commission “to carry out the work in accordance with EU law, at the international level and in coordination with international partners.
Source: BFM TV
