Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will meet the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Belgian Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, on Friday for emergency talks as the EU races to save its much-needed financing plan for Ukraine.
The three leaders will dine privately in Brussels, a German government spokesman said on Thursday, as Belgian officials continued to strongly oppose the plan, which involves the unprecedented use of frozen Russian assets.
With Russia’s attacks intensifying, Washington pushing for a peace deal in favor of Moscow and Kiev that is quickly running out of money, and Europe struggling to gain influence in US-led talks, the bloc must find a solution or its credibility will take a major hit.
Two weeks before a crucial EU summit on December 18, von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed two major options for the EU to raise the tens of billions of euros Ukraine needs to continue funding its struggling military and basic services against Russia’s war.
The EU has promised to keep Ukraine afloat next year. The aim is to raise €90bn (£80bn) to meet around two-thirds of Kiev’s needs for 2026 and 2027, von der Leyen said, giving Ukraine the means to negotiate a peace deal “from a position of strength”.
The bloc could either borrow against its shared budget on international markets, the committee chairman said, or issue a loan backed by immobilized Russian assets – mainly in Belgium – that Kiev would repay from Russia’s post-war reparations.
However, there are obstacles to both alternatives. Many Member States are not keen on joint loans, which have to be repaid. It also requires unanimity, which could prove difficult given Hungary’s past opposition to financing Ukraine.
The frozen assets plan, launched almost two months ago, is still strongly rejected by Belgium, which hosts about two-thirds of the estimated 290 billion euros of Russian assets in the West at Euroclear, a securities depository in Brussels.
“This is a pretty big moment,” said a diplomat of one of the founders. “It’s never easy to reach an agreement at the age of 27, we know that. But if we can’t do something as existential as money for Ukraine, we have really failed, both us and Ukraine.”
The logic of using the assets as collateral for a huge loan to Ukraine — rather than seizing them, which most experts say would be illegal — is that it would show Moscow that Ukraine can keep fighting for years, putting Kiev in a better negotiating position.
But De Wever’s government has repeatedly argued that if Russia decided to take legal retaliation, or demand its money back because sanctions on the country have been lifted, the country risks being left on the hook for billions.
“We have the frustrating feeling that we have not been heard. The texts submitted by the committee do not satisfactorily address our concerns,” Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said on Wednesday, calling for joint EU loans.
De Wever, a Flemish nationalist, has gone even further. The Belgian Prime Minister told an event in Brussels this week that it was “a nice idea, stealing from the bad guy to give to the good guy. But stealing the frozen assets of another country has never been done.”
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He added: “Even during World War II, we did not confiscate Germany’s money. In a war, you freeze state assets. And ultimately the losing side has to give up some or all of those assets to compensate the victors.”
But, De Wever claimed, it was “a fairy tale, a complete illusion” to “imagine that Russia will lose this war in Ukraine.” Moscow had “informed us that if the assets are seized, Belgium, and I personally, will feel the consequences for eternity.”
The commission has insisted that the plan is fully in line with EU and international law and that a “three-pronged defence” would protect Belgium from legal jeopardy, an argument that von der Leyen and Merz are likely to make at Friday evening’s dinner.
In an opinion piece In the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the German Chancellor warned his fellow EU leaders on Thursday that the decisions they would make in the coming days would “decide the question of European independence.”
An “imperialist Russia” “aspired to expand its sphere of influence to the states of Europe” and “prepared militarily for a conflict with the West,” Merz said, adding that it was crucial to “send an unequivocal signal to Moscow” by using its resources.
He said Belgium must be guaranteed that the risks of the plan are borne fairly by all EU member states, with each country “taking an equal share of the risk, as a function of their respective economic performance”.
Europe must “decide and shape what happens on our continent,” he added. “An aggressor’s financial resources are legally frozen within the jurisdiction of our rule of law. What we decide now will determine the future of Europe.”
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