The European Commission wants Russia to answer for the invasion of Ukraine. And for this he proposes measures in connection with the establishment of facts and their accountability before an international court, as well as the use to be given to frozen Russian assets.
The European Commission proposes a fund of 18,000 million for Ukraine financed with the common debt
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“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought death, devastation and unspeakable suffering,” the president of the European Commission said on Wednesday in a no-questions-asked message posted on social networks: “We remember all the horrors of Bucha. Russia must pay for his horrific crimes, including his crime of aggression against a sovereign state.”
Thus the president of the Community Executive stated: “Without ceasing to support the International Criminal Court, we propose to create a specialized tribunal supported by the United Nations to investigate and judge Russia’s crime of aggression. We are ready to start working to gain the widest possible international support for this specialized tribunal.”
Von der Leyen also demanded that Russia “pay financially for the devastation it causes. The damage suffered by Ukraine is estimated at 600 billion euros. Russia and its oligarchs must compensate Ukraine for the damages and cover the costs of rebuilding the country. And we have the means to make Russia pay for it. We froze 300 billion euros of reserves of the Central Bank of Russia and froze 19 billion euros of Russian oligarchs’ money.
“In the short term,” Von der Leyen said, “we could create a structure to manage these funds and invest them. We would then use the proceeds of that money for Ukraine. And once the sanctions are lifted, these funds should be used by Russia to fully compensate for the damage done to Ukraine.”
The ambassadors of the 27 to the European Union are studying the proposals this Wednesday morning, which present various legal obstacles, precisely to use the assets confiscated under specific legislation which provided for their freezing, not their use for other purposes.
The president of the European Commission added: “We will work on an international agreement with our partners to make this possible. And together, we can find legal ways to get there. Russia’s horrific crimes will not go unpunished.”
Russia must pay for its horrific crimes.
We will work with the ICC and help establish a specialized court to try Russia’s crimes.
With our partners, we will make Russia pay for the devastation it has caused, with frozen oligarch funds and its central bank assets pic.twitter.com/RL4Z0dfVE9
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) November 30, 2022
The EU has frozen 18,900 million euros worth of Russian private assets from the different sanctions packages approved by the 27. In addition there are 300,000 million dollars (about 289,000 million euros) of reserves of the Central Bank of Russia tied up by the EU and the G7.
European legislation does not allow frozen assets to be confiscated unless they are linked to the commission of a crime, and in this sense it has just approved that violations of European sanctions can be considered a crime. From there, Brussels plans to present on Friday a proposal for a directive to set the related sanctions, which would be linked to the directive to strengthen the recovery and confiscation of funds, presented in May and awaiting the approval of the 27.
The European Commission proposes to give more powers to national authorities to confiscate assets, facilitate confiscation even in the absence of conviction of the owner of the assets; and expand the offenses that can lead to confiscation, including participation in criminal organizations that traffic in weapons, people or cultural property, among others.
On the other hand, Brussels raises possible options for channeling the revenue that could be obtained from the confiscated Russian assets to the reconstruction of Ukraine, either by transferring it to a fund or the budget of the European Union or by creating an international instrument for the management of these temporarily active.
“It could be explored with international partners who have adopted similar sanctions whether active management of frozen and fixed assets, in particular the liquid assets of state-owned enterprises and the Central Bank of Russia and affiliated entities, could be implemented,” the Commission says . .
This would allow for “stable and predictable” revenues for Ukraine’s reconstruction, but would require the creation of “preferably international” financial instruments, he adds.
The idea would be to use this system temporarily, for example until a peace agreement is reached between Ukraine and Russia, since international law requires that the goods must be returned to their owner, in this case Moscow, once the sanctions.
However, the Commission does not have an estimate of the value of liquid assets that could be transferred to this potential fund, a calculation for which it requires the cooperation of member states, national central banks and international partners, EU sources explained.
In this sense, the document of ideas of the Community Executive, presented to the 27 EU countries, insists on the fact that as a first step it is necessary to strengthen the identification and monitoring of frozen assets, as well as the information that the States provide on the situation on the their territory.
