Brussels, March 22.- The European Union (EU) concluded the first day of its summit in this capital, without an agreement for the use of interest obtained from Russian assets frozen in Western banks.
The Council of Europe, which brings together all EU leaders, limited itself to pointing out in a document the progress made in reconciling concrete actions aimed at using dividends linked to frozen Russian bank accounts in favor of Ukraine.
The summit of the community entity called to analyze recent proposals in this regard from the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and International Security, Josep Borrell, says the statement that, apparently, ignores warnings from the Kremlin.
Moscow announced last week that manipulation attempts related to its assets held in Western financial institutions, especially European ones, would entail a response and would affect investors and companies from that region with accounts in Russia.
Borrell proposed last week the use of 97 percent of the dividends obtained from the permanence of assets of the Central Bank of Russia immobilized in banks, especially European ones.
After the beginning of the war operation, ordered by President Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 to protect the rebellious region of Donbas, the EU and the group of seven most industrialized countries froze part of Russian currency reserves.
At least 300 billion euros were trapped in European financial institutions, 200 billion of them in the Belgian bank Euroclear. Already in October 2023, that company stated that it had three billion euros of interest on the money retained.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov noted that the West's appropriation of withheld Russian funds to finance the Ukrainian government destroys the entire basis of European and international law.
The personalities and countries involved in that decision will be the subject of judicial persecution for several decades, Peskov predicted.
After the start of the Ukrainian conflict, Western powers launched an economic war against Russia that includes more than 17,800 unilateral punitive measures, including the aforementioned asset freeze. (Text and photo: PL)
