2024-04-03 08:51:33
MEP Rasa Juknevičienė welcomes this small step forward. “What is needed now is decision and courage. A brave decision, legally justified, but very brave. It is probably new, in general, in the history of the democratic world, that all the frozen money will not return to Russia, whatever it is, but will be used for Ukraine – whether it is to help win this war, or whether it is for the reconstruction of Ukraine. 300 billion, so imagine what that means? If Russia spent 100 billion dollars on war last year, only officially. approximately, it is 300 billion is a huge amount. Is that possible? Will it work? At the moment, as far as I know, there is also an international group of the most famous lawyers, gathered voluntarily, which is trying to find legal ways to do this, but so far I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel because of all the money”, – in the “Gyvenu Europa” program of “Žiniai Radio” said R. Juknevičienė, a member of the European Parliament.
However, exactly those 2 billion the frozen interests of Russian assets allow us to move a little bit towards discussions about the seizure of all Russian assets in the European Union. “This is not the opening of the door, but the box is already useful,” said the MEP.
The European Commission proposes to use these funds to arm Ukraine. 90 percent of the funds would be allocated to the fund that covers the costs of purchasing weapons intended for Ukraine, and the remaining 10 percent. would be transferred to the budget of the European Union and used to increase the capabilities of the Ukrainian defense industry. According to the politician, there may still be disputes regarding this proposal, because the decisions are extremely complicated.
“The European Union is not a unitary state. Brussels itself, the European Commission cannot take and decide, all member states decide, it is mandatory to agree unanimously. Negotiations and conversations are taking place. There are neutral countries outside of NATO that identify themselves as neutral, so they don’t want to spend money on war. There are all sorts of considerations and there will be, but I am glad that the same Ursula von der Leyen is demonstrating strong leadership, where her word and negotiating skills are extremely important in this case,” noted R. Juknevičienė.
The long process is not only due to the search for legal solutions, not only because of the doubts of neutral countries, but also because of the possible response of Russia. Some businesses that still operate in Russia are afraid of facing the same response from Moscow. Businessmen also influence politicians. “In many countries, like Lithuania, we have the same option, with the same Visvaldas Matijošaitis, but it is especially important from other countries where money is frozen.
Most of the Russian money is frozen in Germany, Belgium. Their companies are still operating in Russia, and there is that fear of receiving the same response from Russia. The issue is still unresolved. The business of the countries of the European Union has not completely withdrawn from Russia”, R. Juknevičienė pointed out the Russian response to the use of frozen assets for the needs of Ukraine. The fact that European Union companies still continue to work in Russia can continue to push politicians to make the bold decision to allocate funds from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. Equally, there are concerns about the investment climate that such a decision would create.
2024-04-03 08:51:33