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Von der Leyen pushes ahead with reparations loan for Ukraine as Belgium maintains its opposition.

Euro News, By Jorge Liboreiro, 03/12/2025 

Ursula von der Leyen has offered sweeping guarantees for Belgium to agree to an unprecedented reparations loan for Ukraine. Belgian authorities say risks could be fatal. EU leaders will gather on 18 December to make a final decision. If no deal is found, the EU will resort to joint debt.

The European Commission will provide Belgium with sweeping guarantees to unblock a controversial reparations loan for Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen has said, forging ahead with the plan despite risks deemed “disastrous” by Belgian authorities.

The guarantees, outlined in legal texts presented on Wednesday, consist of bilateral contributions by member states, a backstop by the EU budget, legal safeguards against retaliation and a new prohibition on transferring sovereign assets back to Russia.

It is the boldest and most comprehensive attempt by the Commission to overcome Belgium’s resistance before a crucial EU summit on 18 December. Ukraine has said it would need a fresh injection of foreign funding as early as spring next year…………………………………………..

An untested scheme

The reparations loan is von der Leyen’s preferred option to cover Ukraine’s financial and military needs for the next two years, estimated at €135 billion. The EU is meant to contribute at least €90 billion, with the rest backed by other Western allies, which do not include the United States, as it no longer provides external support.

Under the untested scheme, the Commission would channel the immobilised assets of the Russian Central Bank into a zero-interest line of credit for Ukraine.

Kyiv would be asked to repay the loan only after Moscow agreed to compensate for the damages caused by its war of aggression – a virtually unthinkable scenario.

The bulk of the assets, about €185 billion, are held at Euroclear, a central securities depository in Brussels. There are €25 billion in other locations across the bloc.

This means Belgium holds the cardinal vote in negotiations.

Since the start of discussions in September, Belgium has firmly demanded bulletproof and all-encompassing guarantees from other member states to shield itself against Moscow’s scorched-earth retaliation and prevent multi-billion-euro losses.

Another key worry is that the sanctions behind the assets, which are subject to renewal by unanimity, might be derailed by a single country’s veto. A premature lifting of the restrictions would release the Russian funds and precipitate the collapse of the loan.

The European Central Bank has declined to provide an emergency liquidity backstop to help governments raise the necessary cash to protect Euroclear.

Belgium’s unwavering resistance

Even before von der Leyen took the stage, Belgium dug its heels in.

Earlier on Wednesday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said the reparations loan was “the worst” of the three available financial options to support Ukraine.

“Our door has always remained open and still is. However, we have the frustrating feeling of not having been heard. Our concerns are being downplayed,” Prévot said before heading into a ministerial meeting of NATO.

The Commission’s proposals “do not address our concerns in a satisfactory manner. It is not acceptable to use the money and leave us alone facing the risks,” he added, suggesting that he was aware of the content of the legal documents before they were made public by the head of the Commission.

Prévot said that for the loan to move ahead, his country would require guarantees that “go beyond” Euroclear and Belgium, easily exceeding €185 billion of the assets.

“We are not seeking to antagonise our partners or Ukraine,” he said. “We are simply seeking to avoid potentially disastrous consequences for a member state that is being asked to show solidarity without being offered the same solidarity in return.”

In her presentation, von der Leyen sought to address the Belgian reservations with broader guarantees – backed by both member states and the EU budget – that Euroclear will have liquidity at all times to honour the claim of the Russian Central Bank.

The guarantees will also cover any potential awards from arbitration and be complemented by safeguards to nullify retaliation against European property.

Additionally, the EU will introduce a novel measure to prohibit the return of sovereign assets to Russia. The law will be based on Article 122 of the treaties, which has been used only for economic emergencies, and approved by a qualified majority. In practice, it will defang individual vetoes and prevent a sudden removal of sanctions.

In yet another overture to Belgium, von der Leyen opened the door to using the entire pool of €210 billion in Russian sovereign assets across the bloc and invited other G7 allies, like Canada, the UK and Japan, to mimic the instrument.

However, it is unclear if the offering will be enough to convince Belgium.

However, it is unclear if the offering will be enough to convince Belgium.

Last week, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said that prolonging the sanctions by a qualified majority would “enhance the practical appearance that sanctions are open-ended, effectively permanent and thus expropriatory in character”.

“These risks are unfortunately not academic but real,” De Wever said.

If no deal is found on the reparations loan, the EU will resort to joint borrowing, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

The issuance would amount to about €45 billion for 2026 alone.

The option of common debt, advocated by Belgium, would leave the Russian assets untouched and avoid any legal pitfalls. But the idea is opposed by the vast majority of member states because of the immediate impact it would have on national treasuries……………………………………………

In his scathing letter to von der Leyen, De Wever warned that moving forward with the reparations loan at this stage “would have, as collateral damage, that we, as the EU, are effectively preventing reaching an eventual peace deal”…………………….

Ambassadors will begin discussions on the legal texts later on Wednesday, following von der Leyen’s anticipated presentation. The goal is to have a deal when EU leaders meet in mid-December for a make-or-break summit, which means a very tight timeframe.

Adding to the pressure is an $8.1 billion programme that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is meant to grant Ukraine. For the IMF to make a final decision, it will need firm commitments by European allies to ensure Kyiv’s macro-economic stability.

Strictly speaking, the main text of the reparations loan can be approved by a qualified majority, which means that, in theory, Belgium could be overruled. But officials and diplomats admit that such a scenario would be politically untenable.https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/12/03/von-der-leyen-pushes-ahead-with-reparations-loan-for-ukraine-as-belgium-maintains-its-oppo

December 8, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Theft of Russian wealth is tying the entire EU bloc to a sinking ship, or worse, all-out war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any confiscation of Russian assets by the EU leadership – regardless of financial rhetorical packaging – will be viewed by Moscow as theft of sovereign wealth. Russia has vowed it will respond robustly with legal challenges under existing treaties to exact compensation. This is what Belgium is fearful of and why it is resisting von der Leyen’s loan reparation scheme.

In trying to get Belgium onboard, von der Leyen has written legal guarantees that all EU members will share any legal and financial repercussions.

The criminal, irresponsible Euro elites like von der Leyen, Kallas, Merz, Macron, and NATO’s Rutte, are lashing the EU financially to a sinking ship.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pushing ahead with a reckless plan to confiscate over €200 billion in Russia’s sovereign wealth for the purpose of propping up the corrupt NeoNazi Kiev regime and prolonging a futile proxy war.

It is hard to imagine a more crass course of action. Yet the so-called European leadership around Von der Leyen is zealously steering towards disaster. At least the hapless captain of the Titanic tried to avert collision with an iceberg. The Euro captains are heading full steam ahead.

Von der Leyen’s proposed scheme is fancifully called a “reparations loan” and pretends, through legalistic rhetoric, not to be a confiscation of Russia’s assets. But it boils down to theft. Theft to continue the bloodiest war in Europe since the Second World War, which marked the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, is supported by other obsessively Russophobic Euro elites. The EU’s foreign minister Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, asserts that the seizure of Russian money and pumping it into the Kiev regime is aimed at forcing Moscow to negotiate a peaceful end to the nearly four-year conflict. Such twisted logic is an Orwellian distortion of reality.

Belgium and other European states are extremely wary of the unprecedented and audacious move. Belgium, which holds the majority of frozen Russian wealth – some €185 bn – in its Euroclear depository, is anxious that it will be financially ruined if Moscow holds the EU liable for illegal seizure of wealth. Other EU members, like Hungary and Slovakia, are concerned that the Russophobic leadership is undermining any diplomatic initiatives by the U.S. Trump administration and the Kremlin to negotiate a peace settlement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any confiscation of Russian assets by the EU leadership – regardless of financial rhetorical packaging – will be viewed by Moscow as theft of sovereign wealth. Russia has vowed it will respond robustly with legal challenges under existing treaties to exact compensation. This is what Belgium is fearful of and why it is resisting von der Leyen’s loan reparation scheme.

The European leaders are to hold a summit on December 18-19 to decide on the proposal. So desperate are the Russophobic elites that they have been assiduously piling political pressure on the Belgian government to relent in its opposition to go along with the scheme. In trying to get Belgium onboard, von der Leyen has written legal guarantees that all EU members will share any legal and financial repercussions. Thus, the unelected European Commission president is taking it upon herself to write a suicide note for the whole of Europe.

Essentially, the proposed loan reparation scheme is based on using Russian immobilized investments in EU banks as a guarantee to give €140 bn in an interest-free hand-out to Ukraine. The financial life-line is necessary because Ukraine is bankrupt after four years of fighting a proxy war on behalf of NATO against Russia.

Ukraine and its NATO sponsors have lost this conflict as Russian forces gather momentum with superior military force. But rather than meeting Russia’s terms for peace, the Euro elites want to keep on “fighting to the last Ukrainian”. To sue for peace would be an admission of complicity in a proxy war and would be politically disastrous for the European warmongers. In covering up their criminal enterprise and lies, they are compelled to keep the “defense of Ukraine” charade going.

Given the rampant graft and embezzlement at the core of the Kiev regime as indicated by the recent firing of top ministers and aides, it is certain that much of the next EU loan will end up in offshore bank accounts, foreign properties and being snorted up the noses of the corrupt regime.

Von der Leyen’s artful deception of theft claims that the Russian assets are not confiscated permanently but rather will be released when Moscow eventually pays “war damages” to Ukraine. In other words, the scheme is a blackmail operation, one that Russia will never comply with because it is premised on Russia as a guilty aggressor, rather than, as Moscow and many others see it, as acting in self-defense to years of NATO fueled hostility culminating in the CIA coup in Kiev in 2014 and weaponizing of a NeoNazi regime to provoke Russia. Therefore, under von der Leyen’s scheme, Russia’s frozen funds will, in effect, never be returned and, to add insult to injury, will have been routed through to the benefit of Kiev mafia.

Such a criminal move is highly provocative and dangerous. It could be interpreted by Moscow as an act of war given the huge scale of plunder of the Russian nation. At the very least, Russia will pursue compensation under international treaties and laws that could end up destroying Belgium and other EU states from financial liabilities. How absurd is that? Von der Leyen and her Russophobic ilk are setting up Europe for bankruptcy by stealing Russia’s wealth for propping up a corrupt NeoNazi regime that has already sacrificed millions of Ukrainian military casualties?

Alternatively, if the EU leadership does not get away with its madcap robbery scheme at the summit on December 18-19, the “Plan B” is for the EU 27 members to take out a joint debt from international markets to carry the Kiev regime through another two years of attritional war.

The insanity of the EU leaders is unfathomable. It is driven by ideological, futile obsession to “subjugate” Russia. Von der Leyen, as well as Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, are descendants of Nazi figures. For these people, there is an atavistic quest to defeat Russia and assert European “greatness”.

They lost their proxy war in Ukraine with much blood on their hands. But instead of desisting from their destructive obsession, they are desperately trying to find new ways to keep it going.

The criminal, irresponsible Euro elites like von der Leyen, Kallas, Merz, Macron, and NATO’s Rutte, are lashing the EU financially to a sinking ship. They are bringing the entire European bloc down with them, splintering as they go.

What these elites are doing is destroying the European Union as we know it, and they profess to uphold. Ironically, it is they, not Russia, that is the biggest enemy to democracy and peace in Europe.

December 8, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment