Late concession by Belgium paved way for deal on using profits to buy ammo for Kyiv’s war effort.
Late concession by Belgium paved way for deal on using profits to buy ammo for Kyiv’s war effort.
The EU approved a plan to use the profits generated by investing frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine.
Ambassadors meeting in Brussels on Wednesday gave the go-ahead after Belgium signaled a climbdown on the way it treats tax revenue on the cash — the last major obstacle to deal.
The profits generated by investing Russia’s assets immobilized in Belgium— where a large part of the assets frozen in Europe are kept — are worth between €2.5 billion and €3 billion per year.
It's a very dangerous game to play as this signals that investing in the Western monetary system means that your money can be used as a political weapon at any time. It takes away all the credibility of our banking system. Not just for Russia but also for China etc.
That was also the reason that until now we only froze the Russian assets and didn't seize them. And it seems like this is only a seize of yearly profits, not of the actual assets.
The major underlying issue here is that it is not about war crimes as you stated. In fact war crimes have absolutely nothing to do with this as proven with a single image.
Yeah this comment is flagrantly ignoring the fact that Russia is an agressor that is invading a country and committing genocide and threatening nuclear war.
I'm not saying that governments will necessarily take issue.
I'm just saying that that has to also get past publics and their representatives in legislatures.
I'm not saying that it's impossible to do -- people have called this a "Marshall Plan 2.0", and the original was -- ultimately, though not as initially presented -- both done and overwhelmingly grants. But my point is that if Russia isn't actively-invading a country in Europe, I think that it's gonna be harder to get the political momentum for funds than if Russia is doing so.
And we're not talking pocket change -- it's hundreds of billions. Russia's frozen funds are already in the hundreds-of-billions, so that's a significant chunk of that covered already.
I'd rather have the more-difficult-to-raise-money-for things have the easier-to-get money aimed at them.
They are not taking away any money from the existing funds. And that is the important thing IMO. Rather, they are using that large amount of money and investing it (safely) so that they generate surplus money that they use. Hiwever, they arent taking away money that is currently there.