EU supports plan to implement tax on income from frozen Russian assets

Ukrainska Pravda
·2 min read
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
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The EU has noted progress in the execution of the plan to implement tax on the income from frozen Russian assets.

Source: Bloomberg with reference to sources

Quote: "The European Union is progressing with plans to apply a windfall tax to the profits generated by frozen Russian central bank assets, while opting not to seize the immobilised money outright."

Details: Sources of the agency report that recently Foreign Affairs Ministers of the EU countries expressed political support of the idea to implement such taxation. It is expected that this issue will be discussed by the EU ambassadors later this week.

Reportedly, a group of countries, mainly Germany, have made it clear that they are against seizing the Russian assets.

It was stated that the process of coordination of taxation was advancing slowly, since several EU member states and the European Central Bank were concerned about how this decision may potentially affect the stability of the euro.

Earlier, Josep Borrell, the head of EU diplomacy, stated that there was an agreement in the EU to advance to the final stage of work on the opportunity to use the income from frozen Russian assets in favour of Ukraine.

"We have a political agreement to finish working on the basis of the proposition made in December with a focus on the income from frozen assets," Borrell said after the EU Council on the Foreign Affairs Ministers level.

Borrell added that at the moment the conversation is about the possibility of using the tax on the income from the assets, not the frozen assets themselves.

Background: 

  • In December the European Commission proposed to use the tax on the income from frozen Russian assets in favour of Ukraine.

  • According to the media, over €200 billion of blocked Russian assets are in the EU, a big part of it being stored in Belgium in the Euroclear international depository.

  • In October 2023 the Belgian authorities announced that it would create a €1,7 billion fund for Ukraine through taxation of the income from the Russian assets. In March 2022 the EU decided to freeze Russian assets in the EU countries.

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