Listen: Belgium objects to the Russian assets loan as the EU prepares to table its plan

Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, has thrown quite a spanner into the EU’s plans to use frozen Russian state assets to fund Ukraine. The Commission wants to turn those assets, around €210bn frozen since Russia’s full-scale invasion, into a €140bn “reparations loan” to keep Kyiv financially afloat for the next two years. But what’s really behind Belgium’s resistance and could one country derail Europe’s entire Ukraine strategy?

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.

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Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, has thrown quite a spanner into the EU’s plans to use frozen Russian state assets to fund Ukraine. The Commission wants to turn those assets, around €210bn frozen since Russia’s full-scale invasion, into a €140bn “reparations loan” to keep Kyiv financially afloat for the next two years. But, what’s really behind Belgium’s resistance and could one country derail Europe’s entire Ukraine strategy?

Welcome to “Long Story Short”, Europod’s daily podcast that breaks down what matters most in just 5 minutes. “I’m Evi Kiorri, making Europe’s latest long story short in my final episode of this series.
So, most EU governments support the plan. But Belgium, where €185bn of those assets sit in the Brussels-based depository Euroclear, does not.

In a series of letters to commission president Ursula von der Leyen, De Wever calls the loan “fundamentally wrong,” warning of legal, financial, and geopolitical blowback. His argument is essentially that Belgium holds the assets, and therefore Belgium carries the risk, including lawsuits from Russia, retaliation, and what he claims could be an investor panic over the safety of European sovereign debt.

He wants EU countries to give what he describes as “legally binding, unconditional, irrevocable, on-demand guarantees”, which is actually a promise to cover the full €185bn if anything goes wrong. And he also wants other member states, and ideally G7 partners, to share the legal burden.

At the same time, Belgium is facing accusations, mostly whispered by diplomats, that it hasn’t been transparent about the tax revenue generated from these frozen assets. Belgium insists all tax income is earmarked for Ukraine, but some member states say the money is still being mixed into the national budget, making it difficult to track. Not ideal when you're asking the rest of Europe to trust you on financial risk.

And then geopolitically De Wever argues that using Russia’s assets now would undermine the chances of a future peace deal, a point he repeats often, and one that it happens to align with the message coming from Moscow.

Now, all this isn’t just a dispute between Brussels and… well, Brussels.

Ukraine’s economy is in a critical state, and European funding is becoming the only stable lifeline. The frozen assets are the one pot of money large enough, and politically justifiable enough, to offer long-term support. Losing access to that would leave Europe looking for alternatives, most of which involve taxpayer money, which is bad news.

Belgium’s resistance risks delaying the entire package, just as EU leaders prepare to meet in mid-December to finalise Ukraine’s funding. And delay, in this case, is costly, not just for Kyiv, but for Europe’s credibility.

There’s also the trust issue. If even one member state can block the use of frozen assets because it benefits financially from holding them, or because it fears being sued, it raises awkward questions about Europe’s unity and priorities.

And finally, there’s the peace-talks argument. Some EU diplomats privately worry that invoking a hypothetical peace process now is less about diplomacy and more about buying time.

So, what can come out of this?

The European Commission is expected to table the legal text for the loan possibly within days. EU leaders will then attempt to negotiate a deal at the December summit.

Belgium hasn’t slammed the door entirely. De Wever says he could support the loan… but only if every EU country signs up to full financial guarantees covering the entire €185bn. In practice, that’s an extremely high bar, and some diplomats suspect it’s meant to be.

If Belgium doesn’t budge, the EU will have to consider alternatives: issuing joint debt, reallocating budget headroom, or finding yet another complicated workaround. None of these are quick, and none come without political risk.

But that’s all for today on the last episode of Long Story Short, a podcast by Europod in partnership with the Sphera network. I’m Evi Kiorri, and I want to thank you for tuning in day after day and supporting this podcast. I’ll see you somewhere new and this podcast will return very soon.