HauptmannHK 🇧🇪🇺🇦 🇪🇺

Guys, he’s not the biggest obstacle. Not a single Belgian party nor the financial establishment are in favor of seizing those assets. Now, let’s be clear because there NUANCE here: Belgium is NOT fundamentally opposed to Russia paying reparations to Ukraine. It is opposed to Belgium becoming the principal legal and financial risk-bearer for a decision taken collectively by the European Union. There’s also a very legitimate argument to be made about damaging confidence in European financial infrastructure, potentially encouraging reserve diversification away from euro-denominated assets. Which will be bad for the EU - we need more capital, not less, to be able to support Ukraine to victory AND have enough money for reconstruction. The current workaround is they are using the profits from these assets to finance Ukraine and service loans. The assets are also going to be collateral for big loans. So when russia loses the war and has to pay reparations - they will use those assets anyway. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s one that still works.