Politico: The European Union refuses to confiscate Russian assets under US pressure

A senior official in Joe Biden’s administration told Politico about this: The European Union and the United States still cannot agree on the use of frozen Russian assets. In Europe, they are willing to take only the profits and income from the assets, and the United States is pressuring allies and insisting on full confiscation of funds.

The source said: “The European Commission is not ready to go beyond the existing plan, which only collects revenue from frozen assets.”

According to him, Europeans are afraid of its consequences. First is the loss of investment attractiveness, and secondly, there is a risk of retaliatory measures from Russia.

It was previously reported that the European Commission plans to confiscate 15 billion euros of profits and income from the reinvestment of frozen assets in the EU by the Russian Central Bank until 2027. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, also spoke against the withdrawal of frozen Russian assets from this country.

Russia, for its part, has repeatedly announced that it will consider confiscation of Russian assets as theft, and Finance Minister Anton Silvanov emphasized that Moscow will act symmetrically when confiscating Russian funds.