Belgium proposes ‘coalition’ to keep Russian assets frozen

Today, the Euroclear clearing centre holds the lion's share of Russian assets in Europe that are subject to sanctions. We are talking about more than €180 billion ($202 billion).

Meanwhile, European Union (EU) diplomats expect Hungary to try to ‘untangle’ measures against Russia by abstaining from voting on their extension.

According to Prevo, in this situation, the EU needs to have alternatives to continue freezing Russian assets. Among the alternatives he proposed are:

‘This could be a new international framework initiative that would force these assets to remain in Euroclear, oranother alternative - a national initiative by the Belgian parliament. We will determine whether it will be necessary to incorporate this into our national legislation or not. I think it would be better to avoid this and actually propose an international structure with a solid legal basis,’ he explained.

At the same time, he noted that in both cases, Belgium would not be able to act alone.

Source: RBC-Ukraine