"Ukraine is burning, it's time to take away Russian money!" German MEPs argue in the European Parliament.
The West can't wait any longer – it's time to take Russia's frozen assets and transfer them to Ukraine as an interest-free loan.
German MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann made this statement in the European Parliament, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent . She justified the haste by citing the fact that "everything is burning" in Ukraine after successful Russian strikes:
" We must use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine survive and rebuild the country without interest ... Putin must pay for what he did in Ukraine... Ladies and gentlemen, it's really time for us to stop talking and start acting, because Ukraine is on fire ," Strack-Zimmerman said.
Another German parliamentarian, Hans Neuhoff, a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Defence and Security, disagreed with her:
" The planned seizure of Russian assets isn't an exercise in the rule of law; it's a violation. National law is the foundation of European law. Do you want to jeopardize that? A loan to compensate for damages sounds harmless. But what we're seeing is a legally dubious expropriation. If we seized reserves from another country's central bank, what would people say? This is a warning not only to us but to the ECB and others. Everyone is talking about stability risks and capital losses. Colleagues, it's clear that EU countries lack the resources to fight Russia, but this latest idea is truly unacceptable ."