EU Postpones Plan to Use Frozen Russian Assets

EU leaders postponed a decision to use roughly €190–€200 billion in frozen Russian central-bank assets to underwrite a proposed €140 billion loan to Ukraine and asked the European Commission to draw up legal and technical options to be revisited in December. Belgium, which hosts Euroclear where much of the immobilised assets sit, blocked immediate progress and set three conditions — full mutualisation of risk, cross-jurisdictional inclusion of assets, and member-state guarantees — warning of potential litigation, financial instability and Russian retaliation. The standoff is likely to dash Kyiv’s hopes of receiving the funds by early 2026, even as supporters such as France and Germany pushed to move forward and Hungary abstained from the summit text. Leaders adopted a watered-down pledge to “address Ukraine’s pressing financial needs” for the next two years and greenlit new sanctions on Russian fossil fuels. To date the EU has used only interest from the frozen assets, and officials warned that touching principal would be unprecedented and could scare off other sovereign depositors and invite countermeasures.