Europe is facing a huge decision on an unprecedented plan to use Russia’s frozen assets to help Ukraine

The European Union is on the precipice of a momentous decision on whether to use frozen Russian assets to finance more support for Ukraine , an unprecedented plan that has set up a clash between the many member states that support it and Belgium, where the lion’s share of the assets is held.

EU leaders are due to decide on the measure at a crucial summit scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

But such potential use of the assets is steeped in controversy – critics argue it is legally questionable and risks retaliation by Moscow.

It’s a big moment for Europe , and disagreements surrounding the funding proposal are putting EU divisions on display at a time when the bloc faces increased scrutiny from the United States, which has its own ambitions for the frozen assets.

The EU has committed to financing Ukraine for the next two years either way, so if the contentious proposal doesn’t pass, European governments will need to find the money elsewhere amid growing fatigue with the war and pressure on public finances.

It also comes as the temperature of Russian threats to Europe is rising, and the Kremlin has warned that any appropriation of the assets won’t go unpunished.

In simple terms, the EU wants to borrow frozen Russian funds held in financial institutions in Europe and use them to lend money to Ukraine until Russia pays reparations.

Here’s a more detailed explanation: The EU immobilized the local assets of the Russian central bank in 2022 as part of sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Until now, the bloc has been using the interest from the assets – which are mostly bonds – to finance some of its support for Kyiv.

But on December 3, the European Commission unveiled a proposal to go further and effectively use the assets themselves to extend a loan to the war-torn country. The EU’s executive arm referred to the assets’ main part, or principal, as well as the interest and other income from them as “cash balances” since, as the bonds mature and become due for repayment, they are turned into cash.

The commission noted that, because of the EU sanctions, any payments of principal and income from the assets to Russia’s central bank are prohibited, and it argued that the resulting cash balances are not the bank’s property.

Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty Images

“We’re taking the cash balances, we’re providing them to Ukraine as a loan, and Ukraine has to pay back this loan if and when Russia is paying reparations,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters.

The Russian central bank assets held in the bloc are worth about €210 billion ($246 billion). “This is therefore the maximum loan amount we could propose,” said Valdis Dombrovskis, a senior commission official in charge of economic policy.

Over the next two years, the commission wants to lend Ukraine €90 billion ($105 billion) of that amount, covering two-thirds of what the International Monetary Fund estimates the country will need in 2026 and 2027 for civilian and military purposes.

The so-called reparations loan needs to be approved by a “qualified majority,” von der Leyen said, meaning that more than half of the EU’s member states, representing at least 65% of the bloc’s population, will need to vote in favor.

The loan has been proposed at a time when a number of European governments, including Germany, Poland and the Baltic states, are keen to find new ways to finance Ukraine, after years of EU taxpayers picking up the tab.

Also on December 3, the European Commission put forward an alternative proposal: for the EU to borrow money from investors, using the EU budget as a guarantee, and then lend those funds to Ukraine. This measure requires unanimous approval from all member states, which means it could face an effective veto from pro-Russian countries like Hungary and Slovakia.

Euroclear, a securities depository in Belgium, holds most of the Russian assets immobilized in the EU. Estimates of the amount in the country vary – in September, the European Parliament put it at €180 billion ($211 billion). An estimated €176 billion of that has now turned into cash.

The Belgian government has raised a number of concerns about the reparations loan. A key one is that Russia will view it as an illegal repurposing of its sovereign assets.

“We have repeatedly said that we consider the option of the reparations loan the worst of all, as it is risky – it has never been done before,” Belgium’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prévot said on December 3. “We keep on pleading for an alternative – namely, the EU borrowing the amounts needed on the markets.”

The European Commission has tried to bring Belgium on board by asking EU member states to provide guarantees for the loan. These will cover “any member state if it is forced to pay the claim from Russia,” Dombrovskis said.

But the Belgian government has deemed those guarantees “too limited,” worrying that they won’t cover its other potential costs, such as those of fighting a lawsuit against Euroclear, said Peter Van Elsuwege, a professor of EU law at Ghent University in Belgium.

“The problem for Belgium is that – under the current proposal – only the repayment of the loan may be guaranteed but those additional costs are not (yet) covered, which exposes Belgium to a risk of bearing those additional costs,” he told CNN.

Belgium has also insisted on protection against any countermeasures Russia may take against Euroclear’s assets in Russia and beyond.

Ben Stansall/Pool/Reuters

The Russian central bank has already filed a lawsuit seeking billions in damages from Euroclear, saying it is a pre-emptive measure against the European Commission’s plan to transfer the assets “to third parties,” according to Russian state news agency TASS.

On Thursday the bank announced it would also claim damages from European banks in a Russian arbitration court, for what it called the “illegal blocking and use of its assets.” The damages would be for the amount of the withheld assests and the corresponding lost profit, it said in a statement.

The Kremlin could also seize more foreign assets in Russia in retaliation. Around $127 billion is at risk – that’s the estimated value of Russia-based assets belonging to US, EU and UK companies as of 2024, according to the Kyiv School of Economics.

“Panicked EU bureaucrats keep blundering,” the Kremlin’s economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on X Monday. “They know using Russian reserves without CBR consent is illegal,” he wrote, chiming with the central bank’s own adversarial response to the EU proposal.

Other EU countries, such as Italy and the Czech Republic, have also expressed concerns about the plan. The Czech prime minister has said his country will not agree to provide financial guarantees because it needs to reserve its money for Czech citizens.

A broader worry is that using the frozen assets could discourage foreign investment in Europe. A country like China, aware that it could face European sanctions if it invaded Taiwan, might be reluctant to place funds in the region, the argument goes.

The US-backed, 28-point plan for ending the war that was leaked last month called for investing $100 billion of the Russian assets frozen around the world “in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine,” and for the United States to receive profits from those investments. The assets frozen in Europe account for the majority of Moscow’s immobilized assets globally.

After multiple rounds of negotiations, the latest iteration of the peace plan is unknown, but the European proposal to use the bulk of the global assets for the reparations loan is at odds with those US investment ambitions. US officials said they had discussed Monday the use of frozen Russian assets to finance reconstruction in meetings with the Ukrainian delegation and Europeans.

But the EU’s indefinite freezing of the assets it holds, agreed last week , means the bloc holds an important trump card in the negotiations, according to Ghent University’s Van Elsuwege. “The future of these assets cannot be decided by the United States or Russia alone but requires the involvement of the EU.”

Pavel Bednyakov/Reuters

Some Europeans ‘in denial’ about Russia threat, Ukraine’s former economy minister says

America’s financial backing for Ukraine dropped off a cliff this year as the Trump administration halted new support packages for the country.

Since January 2022, Ukraine’s European allies have allocated a total of $221 billion in military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, compared with the US allocation of $134 billion, according to data compiled by the Kiel Institute , a European economic affairs think tank.

“The frozen assets could balance certain declines in certain countries’ support,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday. “Without such support, I don’t see the possibility for Ukraine to hold on, or to stand tall economically. I don’t see us being able to cover such big deficits with other vague promises or unclear alternatives.”

CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Joseph Ataman contributed to reporting.

欧盟即将做出一个重大决定，即是否利用冻结的俄罗斯资产为乌克兰提供更多支持。这项史无前例的计划引发了许多支持该计划的成员国与比利时之间的冲突，因为大部分资产都存放在比利时。

欧盟领导人将在周四和周五举行的关键峰会上决定这项措施。

但这种资产的潜在用途引发了巨大争议——批评人士认为这在法律上存在疑问，并可能招致莫斯科的报复。

对于欧洲来说，这是一个重要的时刻，围绕资金提案的分歧暴露了欧盟内部的分裂，而此时欧盟正面临来自美国的日益严格的审查，美国对冻结的资产也有着自己的野心。

欧盟已承诺在未来两年内继续为乌克兰提供资金，因此，如果这项备受争议的提案未能通过，欧洲各国政府将需要在对战争日益感到厌倦和公共财政压力不断增加的情况下，另寻资金来源。

与此同时，俄罗斯对欧洲的威胁日益加剧，克里姆林宫警告称，任何侵占这些资产的行为都不会逍遥法外。

简单来说，欧盟希望借用存放在欧洲金融机构中的俄罗斯冻结资金，并用这些资金向乌克兰提供贷款，直到俄罗斯支付赔款为止。

以下是更详细的解释：欧盟于2022年冻结了俄罗斯中央银行在乌克兰的资产，作为对莫斯科在乌克兰战争中实施制裁的一部分。此前，欧盟一直利用这些资产（主要是债券）的利息来为其对基辅的部分支持提供资金。

但12月3日，欧盟委员会公布了一项提案，拟更进一步，直接利用这些资产本身向这个饱受战火蹂躏的国家提供贷款。欧盟执行机构将这些资产的本金、利息和其他收益统称为“现金余额”，因为随着债券到期偿还，它们将被变现。

委员会指出，由于欧盟的制裁，禁止向俄罗斯中央银行支付任何本金和资产收益，并认为由此产生的现金余额不属于该银行的财产。

尼古拉斯·图卡特/法新社/盖蒂图片社

“我们将现金余额以贷款的形式提供给乌克兰，如果俄罗斯支付赔款，乌克兰就必须偿还这笔贷款，”欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩告诉记者。

俄罗斯央行在欧盟持有的资产价值约2100亿欧元（2460亿美元）。“因此，这是我们能够提出的最高贷款额度，”欧盟委员会负责经济政策的高级官员瓦尔迪斯·东布罗夫斯基斯表示。

未来两年，欧盟委员会希望向乌克兰提供900亿欧元（1050亿美元）的贷款，这笔贷款将占国际货币基金组织估计乌克兰在2026年和2027年民用和军事用途所需资金的三分之二。

冯德莱恩表示，所谓的赔偿贷款需要获得“合格多数”的批准，这意味着欧盟超过半数的成员国（代表欧盟至少 65% 的人口）需要投票赞成。

这项贷款提议出台之际，包括德国、波兰和波罗的海国家在内的许多欧洲国家政府都渴望找到新的途径来为乌克兰提供资金，因为多年来欧盟纳税人一直在为此买单。

同样在12月3日，欧盟委员会提出了一项替代方案：欧盟以欧盟预算为担保，向投资者借款，然后将这些资金借给乌克兰。这项措施需要所有成员国一致批准，这意味着它可能遭到匈牙利和斯洛伐克等亲俄国家的否决。

位于比利时的证券托管机构欧洲清算银行（Euroclear）持有欧盟境内大部分俄罗斯资产。关于这些资产在欧盟的规模，各方估计不一——今年9月，欧洲议会估计为1800亿欧元（2110亿美元）。据估计，其中约1760亿欧元现已变现。

比利时政府对赔偿贷款提出了一系列担忧。其中一个关键担忧是，俄罗斯会将其视为对其主权资产的非法挪用。

比利时外交大臣兼副首相马克西姆·普雷沃12月3日表示：“我们曾多次表示，我们认为赔偿贷款是所有选项中最糟糕的，因为它风险很大——以前从未这样做过。我们一直在呼吁采取其他方案——即欧盟在市场上借入所需的资金。”

欧盟委员会试图通过要求欧盟成员国为这笔贷款提供担保来争取比利时的支持。多姆布罗夫斯基斯表示，这些担保将涵盖“任何被迫向俄罗斯支付债权的成员国”。

但比利时政府认为这些担保“过于有限”，担心它们无法弥补其其他潜在成本，例如与 Euroclear 打官司的成本。比利时根特大学欧盟法教授 Peter Van Elsuwege 表示。

“比利时面临的问题是——根据目前的提议——只能保证偿还贷款，但这些额外成本（尚未）得到保障，这使得比利时面临承担这些额外成本的风险，”他告诉 CNN。

比利时还坚持要求保护其免受俄罗斯可能对 Euroclear 在俄罗斯境内外的资产采取的任何反制措施的影响。

本·斯坦索尔/Pool/路透社

据俄罗斯国家通讯社塔斯社报道，俄罗斯中央银行已向欧洲清算银行提起诉讼，索赔数十亿美元，称此举是为了先发制人，对抗欧盟委员会将这些资产“转移给第三方”的计划。

周四，该银行宣布将向俄罗斯仲裁法庭提起诉讼，控告欧洲银行“非法冻结和使用其资产”。该银行在一份声明中表示，赔偿金额将包括被扣留资产的数额以及相应的利润损失。

作为报复，克里姆林宫也可能查封更多外国在俄资产。据基辅经济学院估计，截至2024年，约有1270亿美元面临风险——这是美国、欧盟和英国公司在俄罗斯的资产总值。

“惊慌失措的欧盟官僚们不断犯错，”克里姆林宫经济特使基里尔·德米特里耶夫周一在X网站上表示。“他们明明知道未经俄罗斯央行同意动用俄罗斯储备是违法的，”他写道，这与俄罗斯央行对欧盟提议的反对回应如出一辙。

其他欧盟国家，例如意大利和捷克，也对该计划表示担忧。捷克总理表示，捷克不会同意提供财政担保，因为捷克需要将资金留给捷克公民。

更广泛的担忧在于，动用冻结资产可能会阻碍外国对欧洲的投资。有人认为，像中国这样的国家，如果意识到入侵台湾可能面临欧洲制裁，或许会不愿向该地区投入资金。

上个月泄露的这份由美国支持的、旨在结束战争的28点计划，呼吁将俄罗斯在全球各地被冻结的1000亿美元资产投资于“美国主导的乌克兰重建和投资项目”，并由美国从这些投资中获得利润。在欧洲被冻结的资产占莫斯科全球被冻结资产的大部分。

经过多轮谈判，和平计划的最新版本仍未可知，但欧洲提出的将大部分全球资产用于赔偿贷款的方案与美国的投资计划相悖。美国官员表示，他们周一与乌克兰代表团和欧洲方面举行了会谈，讨论了利用冻结的俄罗斯资产为重建提供资金的问题。

但根特大学的范·埃尔苏维格表示，欧盟上周同意无限期冻结其持有的资产，这意味着欧盟在谈判中掌握了一张重要的王牌。“这些资产的未来不能仅由美国或俄罗斯决定，而需要欧盟的参与。”

帕维尔·贝德尼亚科夫/路透社

乌克兰前经济部长称，一些欧洲人“否认”俄罗斯的威胁。

今年，随着特朗普政府停止向乌克兰提供新的援助计划，美国对乌克兰的财政支持骤减。

根据欧洲经济事务智库基尔研究所汇编的数据，自 2022 年 1 月以来，乌克兰的欧洲盟友已向乌克兰提供了总计 2210 亿美元的军事、财政和人道主义援助，而美国提供的援助为 1340 亿美元。

乌克兰总统泽连斯基周二表示：“冻结的资产可以弥补某些国家支持力度的下降。如果没有这种支持，我认为乌克兰无法维持经济稳定，也无法保持经济活力。我认为我们无法用其他模糊的承诺或不明确的替代方案来弥补如此巨大的赤字。”

CNN的凯文·利普塔克和约瑟夫·阿塔曼对报道亦有贡献。