Belgium's foreign minister said the kingdom's opposition to using Russia's frozen assets for Ukraine has not changed, Reuters reported. A push by four member states to revive the plan "generated little enthusiasm or appetite" among European Union foreign ministers, he said. Belgium points instead to part of an already-agreed European loan arriving sooner.
Russia's invasion has become a contest of endurance in which Moscow
spends at war rates and
counts on Western money thinning out first. Ukraine's army runs on
financing decided in foreign capitals, so how fast Europe settles who pays sets what Kyiv can order and field. EU governments have held some $243.7 billion of Russian central-bank money since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022. About €214 billion of it sits at Euroclear, the Brussels depository at the center of the argument.
Nothing has changed, Belgium's foreign minister told the room
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot spoke after an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Ireland on 2 September. Four countries had put the frozen-assets question back on the agenda, and his colleagues showed little interest in taking it up, he said. Belgium's own position has not moved in a year, he added. Anything that amounts to confiscating the money would carry very significant risks for his country, he said.
The country's Defense Minister Theo Francken told Flemish broadcaster VRT in remarks published on 30 August that the door is closed and the question is not open for discussion. He also said the Baltic States should be more careful about returning to it, and recalled how much support Belgium gives Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, The Moscow Times reported.
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