23
Apr
2024
Watch
The use of Russian frozen assets to support Ukraine’s victory and reconstruction (debate)
– Madam President, High Representative. Not often are the moral, legal, political and economic arguments for action as strong as in the case for confiscating Russia’s state assets to help Ukraine. Far too much time has been spent on the separate issue of taxing profits from those assets. Europe needs to seize all of Russia’s underlying assets, and it must do so now. Morally, everyone agrees that Russia must pay for its crimes. A lot of legal analysis arrives at the same conclusion we reached in the European Parliament a couple of months ago. On Saturday, the US House of Representatives adopted a bill authorising the US President to do that. From a political perspective, the time to seize these assets is also now, not in some distant future as part of peace negotiations. If we wait, we are unlikely to ever do so. Some critics of confiscating state assets say that doing so would disrupt financial markets and lead to the withdrawal of assets by countries like China, but where would these assets go? It doesn’t make sense at all. However, the idea of transferring to Ukraine the expected ten or more years—worth of profits can also be studied. Finally, let us also consider the consequences of the failure to seize these assets. Ukraine may simply run out of money to sustain its defensive efforts. Plus, the post-war economy and situation in this country, with hundreds of thousands of veterans struggling to find jobs, looking for jobs and to reintegrate into society. Europe needs to anticipate the potential political consequences. For all the talk of strategic autonomy in recent years. It would be ironic if even on an issue like this, nothing happened until the US made a move.