Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever on Thursday (18 December) drew a firm line immediately ahead of a key European summit, warning that Belgium will not compromise on provisions that could threaten the financial security of Euroclear and the country itself.
At the centre of the dispute is a complex European Commission plan to fund Ukraine in 2026–2027 through a so-called reparations loan, which would indirectly use Russian frozen assets while creating safeguards for financial institutions in case they are later forced to reimburse Moscow.
Belgium, home to Euroclear, where most of the assets sit, has repeatedly raised concerns about legal exposure and the risk of Russian retaliation.
“We’ve set conditions, and they’re clear and well known,” De Wever said. “There can be no flexibility on matters that threaten the financial security of Euroclear and Belgium, let that be very clear.”
"I'm not giving up,” he said.
Addressing representatives of the Belgian parliament's lower house ahead of the EU summit, he said he believed he had a “good chance” of scrapping the current proposal on legal and economic grounds, although he left open the possibility that an agreement could still be reached if Belgium’s key “dealbreakers” were removed from the text.
Intense last-minute negotiations have focused on using EU-issued bonds to ensure Euroclear would have sufficient liquidity to immediately repay Russia if it were to lose a court case.
Belgium has also pushed for “unlimited” financial guarantees from EU member states to cover any damages exceeding the €193bn in immobilised capital, according to diplomats.
However, no EU country can legally commit to unlimited guarantees under current national laws.
And a capped and voluntary guarantee pot, allowing countries such as Hungary and Slovakia to opt out, is increasingly seen as the most realistic compromise.
“I haven’t seen any text yet that would persuade me to change Belgium’s position,” De Wever said. “I hope to see it today, but so far it hasn’t arrived.”
This comes after the rating agency Fitch placed Euroclear's ratings on a negative watch earlier this week, citing the potential for increased legal and liquidity risks.
It also follows a $230bn [€196bn] lawsuit in Moscow brought by the Russian central bank targeting Euroclear.
The Flemish nationalist leader of Belgium's N-VA party, who has been in office since February, stressed that Euroclear has been playing a unique role.
“Euroclear is the only financial institution in the world that transfers the profits of immobilised Russian assets to support Ukraine,” he said during a morning session that lasted over an hour. “That’s the chicken that lays the golden eggs. But today there’s a proposal to actually serve that chicken, to eat it.”
De Wever warned that touching the Russian assets could constitute a “potential violation of international law” and entail serious legal, financial and economic risks.
De Wever, a historian by training, noted that even during World War II, immobilised assets were not repurposed. “We were at war with Nazi Germany at the time, and even then, this never happened,” he also told Belgium’s federal advisory committee on European affairs.
And he also said that using Russian frozen assets was premature, given peace talks. "Those assets are a lever to get us to the table at peace talks. If we spend those assets, we risk losing that trump card".
For her part, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen voiced support for Belgium’s stance, saying the bloc was “working day and night” with the Belgian government to address its concerns.
“If we take the reparations loan, the risk has to be shared by all of us. This is a matter of solidarity, a core principle of the European Union,” she said.
But she insisted: “We have to find a solution today.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas added that the logic behind the plan was clear. “Russia is causing the damage in Ukraine, so they should also be responsible for the reparations,” she said, adding that “the reparations loan is based on that very idea.
However, Belgium is not alone in urging caution. Italy, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Malta have also joined Brussels in asking the commission to explore lower-risk alternatives.
Another alternative floated by the commission is joint EU borrowing backed by the bloc’s long-term budget, a mechanism previously used during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, that option would require unanimous approval from all 27 member states — a high political hurdle given Hungarian opposition.
“Today, we will have a discussion about which one of the two we will use. It will be an intensive discussion,” said von der Leyen.
“For me, the most important part is that by the end of the day, we have secured funding for Ukraine for the next two years,” she added.
But others put it more bluntly.
"Either money today or blood tomorrow. And I am not talking about Ukraine only, I am talking about Europe," said Polish PM Donald Tusk ahead of the meeting with his counterparts.
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Elena is EUobserver's editor-in-chief. She is from Spain and has studied journalism and new media in Spanish and Belgian universities. Previously she worked on European affairs at VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.
Elena is EUobserver's editor-in-chief. She is from Spain and has studied journalism and new media in Spanish and Belgian universities. Previously she worked on European affairs at VoteWatch Europe and the Spanish news agency EFE.