Business & Economics
EU Scrambles to Win Belgium’s Nod for €90 bn Ukraine ‘Reparations Loan’ Backed by Frozen Russian Assets
On 5 Dec 2025, after unveiling legal texts to collateralise €210 bn in frozen Russian reserves, Ursula von der Leyen and Friedrich Merz held emergency Brussels talks with Belgian PM Bart De Wever, whose veto threatens the EU’s plan to raise a €90 bn loan for Ukraine’s 2026-27 budget.
Focusing Facts
- Belgium custodies about €194 bn of the €290 bn frozen Russian sovereign assets, including €183 bn at the Brussels-based clearer Euroclear.
- The Commission’s draft uses EU Treaty Article 122 so the loan can be approved by qualified majority, bypassing unanimity and Orbán’s threatened veto.
- US diplomats have quietly urged several EU capitals since November to block the asset-backed loan, hoping to keep the funds as leverage in a separate Trump-brokered peace plan.
Context
Confiscating an enemy’s state reserves mid-war echoes the Allies’ 1917 seizure of German merchant tonnage and the 1946 liquidation of Japanese assets, both of which spawned decades of claims and countersuits. Today’s tussle exposes two structural currents: the weaponisation of financial infrastructure as a tool of coercion, and Europe’s search for strategic autonomy as US security guarantees fray. If the EU overrules Belgium it will mark the first large-scale use of immobilised central-bank reserves to bankroll a victim during an ongoing conflict, setting a template that could prompt reserve-holding states—from Saudi Arabia to China—to reroute savings away from Western custodians. Conversely, a collapse of the plan would underscore the limits of EU cohesion and accelerate the trend toward transactional, nationally hedged finance that has gathered pace since the 2008 crisis and Russia-China de-dollarisation efforts. Either outcome will ripple through the next century’s monetary architecture more than through the immediate battlefield in Ukraine.
Perspectives
Pro-EU, pro-Ukraine media
e.g., The Guardian, Euronews, POLITICO — Portrays the reparations-loan as a necessary, bold step to keep Ukraine afloat and prove European resolve in the face of Russian aggression and U.S. pressure. Tends to cast Belgium as the main obstacle and skims over the complex legal and financial risks, reflecting a strong integrationist and pro-Kyiv slant.
Outlets highlighting Belgium’s legal-risk concerns
e.g., Al Jazeera Online, Euractiv — Emphasise that using frozen Russian assets could leave Belgium solely exposed to massive lawsuits and retaliation, urging safer financing methods like joint EU borrowing. Focus on Belgium’s financial self-interest may underplay Ukraine’s urgent funding crisis and echo domestic political motives rather than wider EU solidarity.
Russian state-owned media
TASS — Frames the EU decision as outright theft—an illegal expropriation of sovereign Russian funds to fuel Kyiv’s war machine. State propaganda designed to delegitimise EU action and shift attention from Russia’s invasion, using loaded terms and omitting context about Ukrainian damages.