As we’ve been reporting, the EU Commission shared proposals in Brussels yesterday for using frozen Russian assets to fund a reparations loan for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
This prompted the Kremlin to warn today that the move would trigger “the harshest reaction” from Moscow (see 14.22 post).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart
\nDe Wever says he hopes to have positive discussions with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on the issue tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Belgium, which holds the majority of the frozen assets, has previously raised
\nvarious legal concerns about the proposals.<\/p>\n
“I hope it will be a fruitful conversation and that we will
\nfind a solution that we can then present to Europe over the next
\ntwo weeks,” De Wever told local media outlets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the prime minster added: “I can still determine my own position, even if there are large, strong neighbours whom I like very much and greatly respect politically, who might ask me (to do) something differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I have only one responsibility: that is the interests of the Belgian taxpayers.”<\/p>\n
Speaking about the proposals earlier, Merz said EU members states must share the risks of using the frozen assets to fund the loan (see 10.19 post).<\/p>\n
The EU Commission hopes to secure a firm commitment from member
\nstates at a summit on 18 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As we’ve been reporting, the EU Commission shared proposals in Brussels yesterday for using frozen Russian assets to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-330909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}