The European Commission is ready to include the guarantees that Belgium wants to include in the plan to use the immobilized assets of the Russian central bank to provide Ukraine with a "reparation loan," European Commissioner for Economy Valdis Dombrovskis said on Friday, UNN reports with reference to Reuters.
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EU countries want to use Russian sovereign assets held in the Belgian central securities depository Euroclear to provide Ukraine with a "reparation loan" that will only be repaid after Russia pays Kyiv war damages.
Before agreeing to the scheme, Belgium wants other EU countries to guarantee that they will share the potential financial burden that could arise from any legal action Russia might take against Euroclear regarding the plan.
We are offering strong guarantees for Belgium, as well as for financial institutions in our proposal. But on the part of the European Commission, we are ready to work further and see how to further address Belgium's concerns, and this work is ongoing at the moment.
He said that Ukraine would need money from the EU from the second quarter of 2026, and that the EU was already negotiating with other G7 countries - the United States, Canada, Japan and Great Britain - on providing financial assistance to Ukraine in the first quarter.
We are making progress on this issue, and it seems that we will be able to cover Ukraine's financing needs for the first quarter.