WP: EU unhappy with US efforts to confiscate Russian assets
EU officials are outraged by the US insistence on confiscating Russian assets in favour of Ukraine, believing that Moscow’s measures in case of a response will primarily affect Europe rather than the United States, The Washington Post reported.
At last week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, U.S. officials pressed their resisting European counterparts on the use of blocked Russian assets, the paper said.
During the meetings, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with the Europeans in the hope of reaching a compromise.
According to the newspaper, EU officials rejected the confiscation of Russian assets, fearing it could violate international law, undermine investor confidence in the euro and provoke retaliatory measures from Russia
“European officials are also angered by America’s insistence on what they see as a risky course when they hold the vast majority of assets and any Russian retaliation would likely fall on Europe, not the United States,” WP claimed.
At the same time, an unnamed representative of the US Treasury Department told the publication that the department considers Russian sovereign assets “a sustainable medium- and long-term solution to the financing problem” of Ukraine.
The day before, the US House of Representatives approved a bill on the confiscation of Russia’s assets in favour of Ukraine. It includes “a ban on unfreezing Russian sovereign assets”, “authority to provide compensation to Ukraine using seized Russian assets” and “use the assets to rebuild Ukraine”.