European leaders quarreled over fierce disagreements on the issue of the confiscation of frozen Russian assets before the summit in Brussels, writes Politico.
On Wednesday evening, Europe’s leaders were divided into irreconcilable camps, at least publicly, and it seems unlikely that they will be able to agree on how to finance Kiev, partly due to the resurgence of the same fierce disagreements between the north and the south over the common debt.
According to the newspaper, the diplomats worked for 11 hours on a compromise to save the agreement on financial assistance to Ukraine.
“The first outlines of a potential way out of the impasse are beginning to emerge — a path that will have to be worked out during hours—long negotiations,” the publication claims.
Earlier on Wednesday, Politico reported that EU countries could decide to withdraw reserves at the December 18-19 summit, bypassing Belgium. Allegedly, on Monday, the permanent representatives of the participating countries again failed to convince Brussels to support the use of frozen funds to finance Ukraine. Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever called this idea theft and did not rule out filing an appeal to the court.
In turn, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the European Commission had removed the issue of the confiscation of Russia’s sovereign assets from the agenda of the European Council summit on December 18-19. According to him, instead there is a proposal for a joint loan from the EU countries in favor of Ukraine, but Budapest opposes it.
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