On Monday, European Union member states unanimously agreed to provide billions of euros from the profits of Russia's central bank assets frozen in Europe to financing programs for Ukraine's recovery.
According to a Belgian source, the ambassadors of the 27 EU countries agreed in principle to implement that first step. The text still needs to be fully agreed and is under development. The source notes that this will happen as soon as possible. It is expected that the European Commission will propose to transfer the frozen funds to the EU budget and then provide them to Kyiv without specifying the dates.
France and Germany have already expressed reservations about the plan, and the European Central Bank has warned that it could undermine confidence in the euro. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EU, the United States, Japan, and Canada froze about $300 billion in Russian central bank assets in 2022. About 200 billion dollars are kept in Europe, mainly in the Belgian Euroclear clearing house.
