On December 12, the EC plans to publish a plan to use the profits from more than €200B in frozen Russian Central Bank assets. Several issues still need to be resolved, however, and the EU proposal will not affect national tax legislation of any of the bloc’s member countries.
Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, and Luxembourg expressed caution about accelerating the process and called for a more gradual approach. Instead, the countries agreed last week that the EC should start with a more informal document to leave room for narrowing differences in opinion on how to use the profits. The meeting between representatives of the member states and the European Commission on December 6 will be a pivotal moment to determine whether these differences have been sufficiently narrowed.
At the same time, Switzerland froze approximately $8.81B in Russian financial assets. This figure is only the latest estimate and is subject to change.