MUNICH, February 18. /TASS/. The G7 foreign ministers vowed to keep Russian assets frozen until it ‘pays for the damage it has caused’ to Ukraine, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in a statement.
"They reaffirmed their determination to keep Russia’s sovereign assets in their jurisdictions immobilized until it pays for the damage it has caused [to Ukraine]," the top Italian diplomat said as the chairman of the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. "The G7 members will continue to explore all possible avenues to aid Ukraine in obtaining compensation from Russia, consistent with their respective legal systems and international law. They welcomed the adoption by the European Union of the legal acts concerning extraordinary revenues held by private entities stemming directly from Russia’s immobilized assets to support Ukraine," the statement said.
EU countries have already adopted a directive stating that "the proceeds of Russia's frozen assets are not its property," which experts say is roughly equivalent to saying that a bank deposit holder's interest income does not belong to him.
The same directive requires "private platforms," primarily the Belgium-based international custodian Euroclear, to transfer all profits from Russian assets to a separate account.
As a next step, the European Commission plans to create a special European tax, close to 100%, to tax these funds. With the help of this tax, they will be expropriated to the EU budget, and further, the European Commission intends to use them to partially finance a 50 billion euro aid program for Ukraine until 2027. The EU approved this program at a summit on February 1, but the sources of funding have not yet been determined.