The European Parliament held a debate regarding the use of frozen assets belonging to the Russian Central Bank, where most deputies support the European Commission’s proposal to transfer the profits from these assets to Ukraine. However, many parliamentarians insist that this is not enough. They gave various arguments in favor of confiscating all seized Russian assets, totaling nearly €300B globally, of which about €220B are being held in the EU.
Member of the European Parliament Andrius Kubilius emphasized that confiscation would be completely legal because states can use countermeasures to force the aggressor to fulfill its legal obligations.
The US resorted to such actions with Iran’s state funds in 1981 and Iraq’s in 1992 as compensation for Kuwait’s losses. Washington will use this again utilize this mechanism to confiscate $20B of Russian assets that are in the US.
However, the US’ proposal to tap frozen Russian assets revenues to help Ukraine instead of their complete confiscation is gaining popularity among the G7 countries.