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Europe not yet ready to confiscate frozen Russian assets — Dutch government

"We are not that far to say that we can do it," the official said, naming Germany’s objections and legal issues among reasons that hamper the process

NEW YORK, July 21. /TASS/. The European Union has so far been unable to come to terms regarding the seizure of frozen Russian assets and their transfer to Ukraine, Geoffrey van Leeuwen, Foreign Affairs and Defense Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, has said.

"We're not ready yet to take their assets and give them to Ukraine," he told the Aspen Security Forum.

"We are not that far to say that we can do it," the official said, naming Germany’s objections and legal issues among reasons that hamper the process.

Since 2022, the European Commission has repeatedly said that the current European laws do not provide for the seizure of foreign assets frozen as a result of unilateral EI sanction and their transfer to a third person or state. With this in mind, since the last summer, the European Commission has been taking efforts to change European laws to legalize the confiscation of such assets. According to the European Commission, around 200 billion euro of the Russian Central Bank’s assets and private assets worth some 24 billion euro have been frozen in the European Union.

Meanwhile, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said earlier that any attempts to legalize the West’s actions against Moscow’s assets are doomed to failure.

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