WASHINGTON, December 29. /TASS/. Washington will not be able to implement its plan to seize Russia’s assets frozen in the West for use in Ukraine without consent from European countries some of which currently doubt if such a move would be justifiable, Josh Rogin, a columnist for The Washington Post (WaPo), wrote on Thursday.
"The [US President Joe] Biden administration is finally warming to the idea of using Russia’s frozen assets to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction," Rogin wrote in his opinion piece. "Behind the scenes, the White House has been involved in a long internal policy debate, extensive diplomatic outreach and simultaneous negotiations with Capitol Hill as it inches closer to publicly embracing the idea," he added. According to Rogin, "There is legitimate concern inside the Treasury and State departments about seizing foreign sovereign assets, even under these conditions."
Rogin quoted officials as telling him that "only about 2% of those funds are held inside the United States," with the bulk of Russia’s frozen assets being in Belgium and Switzerland. "And there is resistance in Europe, especially in Berlin, about whether the move is justifiable under international law and whether it might undermine confidence in the euro. The Biden administration is centering its diplomatic efforts around the Group of Seven and has called on those countries to come up with a way forward by the end of February, Rogin continued.
"Administration officials told me that without European buy-in, the plan won’t work. That’s true," the WaPo columnist said. According to him, passing the so-called Repo Act that would grant the US president authority to seize Russian sovereign assets frozen inside the country would show that the United States is "deadly serious" on the issue, thereby "possibly inducing fence-sitting allies to fall in line."
"The White House wants to maintain the flexibility to give Russia back the assets if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin compensates Ukraine on his own," Rogin maintained. "Although that is unlikely, it bolsters the argument that the West is not taking Russia’s money — that it’s using it as a down payment on Russia’s future international obligations to Ukraine," he said. Meanwhile, "without Russia’s seized assets, Ukraine could lose its ability to survive as a functioning country," the columnist concluded.