EU leaders failed to reach an agreement on transferring Russian assets to Ukraine

At a meeting in Copenhagen, EU leaders failed to make progress on providing Ukraine with a €140 billion loanbacked by frozen Russian assets.

This was reported by the Financial Times.

According to Henry Foy, head of the FT’s Brussels bureau, the proposal was received “rather coolly.” Belgium confirmed it would not accept such an idea, while France and Luxembourg expressed concerns about possible legal consequences.

Citing three officials briefed on the results of the October 1 meeting, FT noted that during the brief discussion EU leaders agreed the European Commission needs to conduct further analysis of the legal and fiscal implications.

At the same time, they did not reject the general principle of the proposal.

Sources told the paper that given the scale of the work, the European Commission is unlikely to present EU leaders with a formal legal proposal by the time they meet again in Brussels in three weeks.

Earlier, Belgium — the main holder of frozen Russian assets — demanded that EU countries “share responsibility” for any possible confiscation.