The European Commission (EC) has not confirmed that the future of frozen Russian assets will be discussed at the upcoming online summit of leaders of leading EU countries, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and US President Donald Trump on August 13. This was stated by the representative of the European Commission's press service Ariana Podesta at a briefing in Brussels.
„I cannot confirm that the frozen assets will be discussed“, she said.
Podesta recalled that on August 11, the European Commission received the third tranche of confiscated proceeds from the reinvestment of illegally blocked Russian sovereign assets in the amount of EUR 1.6 billion. Earlier, the European Commission announced that 95% of this money will go to payments on international loans to Ukraine, including those provided by the European Union and its member states, and the remaining 5% (EUR 80 million) will be transferred for “urgent military needs of Ukraine“. The arms deliveries worth these 80 million euros will be carried out through the European Peace Fund.
Around 200 billion euros of Russian sovereign assets are frozen in the European Union, the majority of which are in the accounts of the Euroclear depository in Belgium.