German Foreign Minister Johann Wadeful said Berlin is theoretically open to the possibility of donating Russian state assets frozen in Germany to a war reparations fund for Ukraine, as proposed by Brussels.
However, the European Commission's plans will first have to be reconsidered, Wadeful said ahead of the annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Council of Ministers in Vienna on Thursday.
“This is of course uncharted legal territory,” Wadeful said, but added that Berlin “has a clear political goal of making these assets usable” because Ukraine needs financial support and Russia will have to answer for its war.
The minister said Berlin was holding close consultations with all EU member states “with the aim of achieving fruitful results in the European Council before Christmas.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hopes EU leaders will agree to use frozen Russian assets in the bloc to help Ukraine during the next leaders' summit on December 18-19.
The commission is seeking to release Russian funds frozen in Belgium, Germany and other member states to provide Kyiv with a reparations loan of up to 210 billion euros ($245 billion), EU officials said.
Germany has still not disclosed how much Russian central bank money is kept in the country, but said the total value of Russian assets frozen due to the invasion of Ukraine is about 3.5 billion euros.
The assets of the Russian central bank, managed by the Belgian financial institution Euroclear, are valued at approximately 185 billion euros.
