Estonia has every chance of becoming the first country in the world to transfer funds from the sale of assets seized by the Russian Federation to Ukraine, reports “Европейская правда”.
Already in May 2022, Estonia, together with Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, called for the use of Russia’s frozen assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine. In the declaration, the country urged the EU and other countries to “implement an international war compensation mechanism using Russian funds to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Last November, the financial intelligence unit of the Estonian Ministry of Finance estimated that the amount of assets of the Russian Federation under Estonia’s jurisdiction reached almost 21 million US dollars.
Last December, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Yonatan Vsevjov, while visiting Berlin, announced that Russia must compensate Ukraine for its losses: “The war should become so expensive for Russia that it will be forced to end it, Vsevjov concluded.
At the end of the year, Estonian Prime Minister Kaia Kallas said that “the work on ending aggression and using frozen Russian assets must continue.”
The year 2023 began with the unexpected announcement by the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Mikael Tamm, about the intention to develop a legal plan for the confiscation of Russian assets by the end of January this year. The newspaper states that
this initiative of the Estonian government has every chance of finding support in the Estonian parliament – the Riigikogu. Currently, neither the content of Estonian legislation nor the instruments to be implemented are known.
Although official Brussels welcomed Estonia’s efforts towards the confiscation of Russian assets, it asked not to rush their implementation. European Commission justice representative Kristians Vigan publicly called for no rush to adopt foreign asset confiscation legislation so that Estonian legislation complies with future EU regulations on this issue.
