Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland have sent a joint letter to the European Commission calling for the urgent resumption of technical and legal work on mobilising more than €200 billion in frozen Russian assets to cover Ukraine's budgetary needs. According to media reports citing the Financial Times, the initiative is a response to last winter's blocking of the plan to use Russia's sovereign assets due to Belgium's position, as the bulk of these funds is held on its territory. The coalition of four capitals insists that Brussels must seek alternative legal mechanisms that would allow it to circumvent the Belgian veto.
A Coalition of Four Countries
According to published information, the document addressed to the European Commission calls for an immediate start to working out the legal and technical details of mobilising the frozen funds. The authors of the letter emphasise that the sum of more than €200 billion could become a key resource for supporting Kyiv amid the ongoing conflict. The four countries' initiative is seen as an attempt to bring the issue back onto the political agenda after it was effectively frozen last winter due to the resistance of one EU member.
Stockholm's Arguments
Commenting on the initiative, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard stated that it is time to start a new discussion on the use of Russian funds. In her words, the €90 billion loan already issued by the EU is clearly insufficient to cover Ukraine's spending in the conditions of a continuing war: this amount, it is noted, covers only about two-thirds of Kyiv's financial needs until the end of 2027. Thus, Stockholm's argumentation is built on the premise that without access to the frozen assets, Ukraine's budgetary gap will keep growing.
Belgium's Veto and Legal Risks
The obstacle to implementing the plan remains Belgium, where the bulk of the frozen funds is concentrated. Official Brussels, according to available data, still fears legal retaliation from Moscow and warns of risks to the stability of global financial markets. In particular, Brussels points out that in the event it had to return more than €200 billion to Russia, Belgium would not have sufficient resources to cover such expenses on its own. At the same time, the country had previously stated its readiness to consider using the assets for Ukraine's benefit, but insisted that EU countries first agree on a mechanism for distributing legal and financial risks.
Contradictory Data
There are notable inconsistencies in the parties' positions and in the wording itself. On the one hand, Belgium publicly stated its readiness to consider transferring the frozen assets to Ukraine; on the other, it was precisely its position that effectively blocked the initiative last winter, and now partners are demanding that the European Commission develop mechanisms to bypass the Belgian veto. This raises the question of whether the veto is a final political decision or a temporary legal caveat. Moreover, the discussion compares two different figures: the €90 billion loan already issued, which, according to Stockholm's assessment, covers only two-thirds of Ukraine's needs until the end of 2027, and the more than €200 billion in frozen assets proposed for use. The difference between these sums and the degree to which they are mutually substitutable is not disclosed uniformly in official documents.
Context: The EU's Seven-Year Budget
The new wave of debate over frozen assets is unfolding against the backdrop of discussions on the European Union's next seven-year joint budget, which adds extra sharpness to the discussion: the question of who will finance support for Ukraine and from what funds is becoming part of a broader budgetary bargaining process. In the same vein, Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs had earlier stated that EU countries should not bear the costs of the consequences of Russian aggression on their own and that Russia's frozen assets should be used for this purpose. Thus, the four countries' initiative fits into a growing intra-bloc trend of shifting the financial burden of the conflict onto frozen Russian funds.
