BRUSSELS, May 3. /TASS/. EU ambassadors are unlikely to reach an agreement on the use of income from seized Russian assets at their meeting on May 8, as previously planned, the European edition of the newspaper Politico reported.
According to the publication, some of the EU members association oppose Belgium’s proposal to levy about 1.7 billion euros as corporate tax on the profits of seized Russian assets in 2024.
As the publication explains, this will prevent the European Commission (EC) from implementing its plan to appropriate and transfer to the EU budget the entire amount of income from Russian assets and spend 90% of them on investments in the military-industrial complex to increase arms supplies to Ukraine. The EU countries expected a new proposal from Belgium, but it never came, the newspaper says.
Earlier the EC approved a proposal to use proceeds from seized Russian funds to provide assistance to Kiev. As EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said, this initiative provides for the transfer of 90% of Russian revenues for the purchase of shells for Ukraine and the transfer of 10% to the EU budget for subsequent support of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex. The first deductions can be made as early as July.
In winter, the EC adopted a directive in which it tried to justify the expropriation of income from Russian frozen assets, declaring that they allegedly do not belong to Russia. Experts in the banking sector note that this thesis is not only legally void in terms of property rights, but is also completely untenable. It roughly corresponds to the statement that income from a bank deposit does not belong to the owner of the deposit.