The Collapse of the Russian Assets “Reparations Loan”: Central Europe’s Pragmatic Opt-Out |
The European Union summit on 18-19 December 2025 was intended to be a show of solidarity with Ukraine. The result was precisely the opposite. Instead of a monolith, we witnessed profound fractures.
Financial Agreement at the Cost of Ideological Defeat
After exhaustive overnight negotiations, it was finally agreed that Ukraine would receive €90 billion in interest-free loans for the 2026-2027 period. The funds are to come from common EU borrowing. This is a declaration of continued support. The price for this compromise, however, was the complete burial of another, much more ambitious project: the so-called “reparations loan,” which was to be secured by profits from approximately €210 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets, held mostly in Belgium’s Euroclear.
This ideologically charged plan shattered against hard reality. First – the law. Belgium, where these assets are physically located, pointed to colossal legal risks and the precedent-setting trap of such a move. Second – and more importantly – politics. Belgium’s legal reticence was joined by a cohesive political front from three Visegrád Group states.
The Triumph of the Central European Trio