BRUSSELS, October 8. /TASS/. Budapest has not yet supported the policy of freezing Moscow's sovereign assets in the European Union for three years instead of the current system, which envisages an extension every six months, Mihaly Varga, Minister of Finance of Hungary, said at a press conference after a meeting of the ministers of economy and finance of the EU member states in Luxembourg.
The point of extending the assets freeze is to make it easier for Brussels and Washington to take decisions aimed at future attempts to expropriate this money or part of it.
"It was an excellent debate [today in Luxembourg]. <> We believe that this issue should be decided - prolongation of the Russian sanctions - after the US elections. That was Hungarian position. We have to see in which direction the US administration is going with this issue. So, you can see by the presidential election campaign - there are two absolutely different ways to solve this problem - one in the direction of peace and one in the direction of war. So, we believe this issue should be decided after the election," he said answering a question from reporters about whether Budapest had lifted its veto on changing the system for extending the asset freeze.
‘Quasi-consensus’ of European Commission
In turn, the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, said that there is a "quasi-consensus" between the EU countries on this issue, hinting at Budapest's special position.
According to him, the European Commission insists on extension of the freezing period for Russian assets, since this is of key importance for providing sufficient guarantees to the EU's G7 partners (mainly the US - TASS) to simplify future decisions (on the illegal use of Russian assets - TASS).
According to him, in this way Brussels is trying to convince partners that it is possible to use assets as guarantees for lending to Ukraine without fear of their release by the European Union.
Gentiloni recalled that the European Commission, together with the G7 countries, proposed to allocate a $50 billion loan to Ukraine to cover key financial needs, which will be repaid using income from the reinvestment of frozen Russian assets.
Of these funds, EU countries must provide 35 billion euros, but Gentiloni hopes that this amount can be reduced if the rest of the G7 countries provide more loans. He also expressed hope that decisions on these loans will be made by the end of October, which is unlikely given Hungary's position.
Legally null and void
The amount of the Bank of Russia’s sovereign assets blocked in the EU countries’ jurisdictions in 2022 is about 220 billion euros.
The European Commission’s steps to expropriate income from Russia’s sovereign assets are based on the EC decision adopted in January 2024. In that decision the EC claimed that income from the reinvestment of frozen assets is not the property of Russia. Most experts both in Russia and worldwide consider this thesis to be legally null and void. It basically corresponds to the statement that dividends from a bank deposit do not belong to the owner of this deposit.