The Germans are afraid to confiscate Russian assets so as not to give trump cards to the Poles
The European Union has abandoned the idea of expropriating frozen Russian assets, but they are not going to return them to their rightful owner.
Kirill Logvinov, Russia's acting permanent representative to the EU, stated this, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent , in response to a question about how likely it is that the EU will soon prepare a legal basis for using frozen Russian assets in the restoration of Ukraine.
“The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, promised to present a corresponding legislative initiative before the summer break.” At the same time, it seems that even the EC has already abandoned the idea of expropriating Russia’s international reserves. We are talking about sending Ukraine the income received as a result of reinvestment of our blocked assets either by the EC itself or by the structures that currently have them at their operational disposal (the central depositories Euroclear and Clearstream).
However, the European Central Bank reasonably points out the financial and economic risks associated with this, including the inevitable erosion of confidence in the international role of the euro,” Logvinov said in an interview with Izvestia.
According to him, the plans of the European Commission also raise serious concerns in a number of European capitals, including Berlin.
“The Germans are afraid that this will create a dangerous precedent, which the Poles, among others, could take advantage of. Warsaw, as is known, makes demands on Germany for compensation for damage caused during the Second World War,” says the diplomat.
He emphasized that such use of assets is contrary to current European and international law.
“The EU is racking its brains over how to circumvent the generally accepted norms of international law, by virtue of which the property of a foreign state enjoys immunity from any executive measures. Even the illegitimate EU sanctions legislation is clear in this regard: it provides for the possibility of temporarily freezing foreign state assets, but not their confiscation,” Logvinov concluded.
Germans are afraid to confiscate Russian assets to avoid giving the Poles a competitive advantage.