BRUSSELS, December 6. /TASS/. Hungary has blocked the European Commission’s alternative plan to issue Eurobonds to a sum of 90 billion euro that was offered by Brussels in case of the failure of the "repatriations loan" project based on the expropriation of Russian assets, Politico reported.
"Hungary formally ruled out issuing Eurobonds to support Ukraine on Friday, a move that robs the EU of a potential Plan B should it fail to find a way to use frozen Russian state assets to finance a €165 billion loan to Kiev," it wrote, adding that Hungary used its right to veto at a meeting of the ambassadors from the 27 EU countries in Brussels where they discussed a potential expropriation of Russian assets.
A diplomatic source told TASS earlier that the ambassadors failed to make any practical decisions on this matter.
On December 3, the European Commission presented its plan for the expropriation of Russian sovereign assets blocked in Europe under the guise of a so-called "reparations loan" to Ukraine. The EC proposed appropriating all 210 billion euros in assets blocked in the EU, of which 185 billion euros are blocked in Euroclear accounts, while the location of the remaining 25 billion euros is unknown. Of this amount, the European Commission intends to take control of 165 billion euros and use it to finance Ukraine in 2026-2027, while using the remaining 45 billion euros to cover loans already issued to Ukraine starting in 2024, with interest paid from the reinvestment of Russian assets.
Plan B provides for issuing Eurobonds woth 90 billion euro from the EU budget. In this event, the loan is to be repaid by EU countries proportionally to the size of their economies.
Although the European Commission refers to both options as "loans," this money will actually be transferred to Kiev for free as back in October it officially acknowledged that Ukraine is no longer able to contract and service new commercial loans.