BERLIN, December 4. . German Foreign Minister Johann Wadeful did not rule out the possibility of Ukraine using Russian assets frozen in Germany.
“Of course, this is uncharted territory from a legal point of view,” he admitted before the start of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers in Vienna. “But the German government has clear political goals in using these assets,” Wadeful added, as quoted by DPA. In this regard, the Foreign Secretary affirmed, “in-depth consultations are underway with all (EU) member states with a view to achieving useful results at the European Council before Christmas,” which Catholics celebrate on December 25.
The DPA points out that the German government is keeping secret the specific amount of Russian state assets that have been frozen in Germany. So far, around 3.5 billion euros have been reported.
At the EU summit on October 23, Belgium blocked Russia's plan to expropriate assets on the grounds of providing Ukraine with a so-called compensation loan out of fear of Moscow's retaliatory measures and asked EU countries for legal guarantees that Belgium's financial losses would be distributed among all countries in the community. A decision on the issue has been postponed until the EU summit on December 18-19. On December 3, the European Commission presented legal proposals on the confiscation of Russian assets.
As Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko told , the country's leadership has been presented with proposals in response to the possible confiscation of Russian assets by Western countries. Press Secretary of Russian President Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Moscow will not ignore such actions.
