The biggest bank robbery in history, by Ian Proud

The Russian push back on the EU’s theft of its sovereign assets is going to be ferocious. From Ian Proud at strategic-culture.org:

The European Union presses on with plans to seize Russian assets permanently

For over two years, there have been loud and repeated calls for Russia’s immobilised assets in Europe – valued at around $245 billion – to be permanently seized. However, those assets had hitherto been immobilised under EU sanctions which required unanimous agreement every six months.

Not any more. Given Belgium’s sturdy resistance to using $165 billion in immobilised assets held in Euroclear, the European Commission has triggered an emergency clause in the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union to bypass the principle of unanimity on sanctions policy.

On Thursday of last week European Council Ambassadors agreed by majority to freeze indefinitely immobilised Russian assets in European banks. This proposal is separate from specific lending to Ukraine to cover its financial needs, which was subject to a separate proposal.

But, in fact, the two are connected. Because the separate proposal for a so-called reparations loan makes clear that Ukraine will only have to repay the loan if its receives reparations from Russia, whereupon Russia’s frozen assets will be returned.

However, Russia will self-evidently never make reparations payments to Ukraine precisely because its immobilised assets which might be used for reparations in Ukraine have already been expropriated and are unlikely to be returned.

The measure proposed by the EU uses as its legal basis the need to cover the economic risks to the EU from the ongoing war. However, the Economist has pointed this out as an example of ‘dodgy’ legal logic. But it’s worse than that; it’s in fact untrue. The money is not intended to support Europan economies, as it only represented 1% of European GDP. It will be used to back a reparations loan that is not intended for reparations, but rather to pay for Ukraine’s bloated budget.

This includes $106 billion to cover Ukraine’s budget deficit over the next two years and $50 billion to write off the EU contribution to the G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loan agreed in June 2024. The remainder will be pumped into Ukraine’s defence industry.

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