As the December 18-19, 2025 summit opened, EU leaders still had no common position on one of the year’s most divisive issues: whether frozen Russian assets can be used to support Ukraine. According to the figures discussed in the bloc, at least 210 billion euros are involved, mostly belonging to the Russian central bank. Most member states favor using the funds, while Belgium and several others warn of serious legal and financial consequences.
Before the Brussels meeting, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stressed how difficult it is to secure agreement among 27 states. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on December 15 that Europeans were still “light-years away” from actually putting the money to use. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, by contrast, warned that failure to reach a compromise again would damage the EU’s ability to act together for years.
The largest share of the frozen funds, about 193 billion euros, is held at the Belgian depository Euroclear. So far, the EU has agreed to use not the assets themselves but the interest earned on them. In 2024 alone, Euroclear generated 6.9 billion euros in such income. The first transfer to the European fund for Ukraine amounted to more than 1.5 billion dollars in July 2024, and the second reached 2 billion euros in March 2025.
Those amounts are not enough. The European Commission estimates that in 2026-2027 Ukraine will need 135.7 billion euros in external assistance, including 83.4 billion euros for military needs. Against that backdrop, Brussels proposed two options: issuing common EU bonds worth 90 billion euros, and a so-called “reparations loan,” under which Ukraine would receive a loan backed by the frozen assets and repay it later using reparations from Russia.
The second option triggered the fiercest opposition. According to Euractiv, resistance came not only from Belgium but also from Slovakia, Italy, Bulgaria, Malta, and the Czech Republic. Their argument is that direct use of sovereign reserves could undermine confidence in Europe’s financial system and lead to prolonged litigation. Euroclear chief executive Valerie Urbain warned in a letter to Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa that investors and central banks could see the mechanism as the equivalent of confiscation.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever argued that history offers no precedent for repurposing immobilized sovereign assets during an ongoing war: such decisions have usually been taken only after hostilities ended and within a postwar settlement.
Supporters of the plan counter that the greater risk for Europe lies not in legal claims but in Ukraine being weakened. CFR expert Brad Setser says the euro is unlikely to suffer major damage, while British commentator Hugo Dixon has argued that giving Ukraine access to the funds would signal to Moscow that Europe is prepared for long-term support of Kyiv. Moscow, for its part, has already vowed to challenge any such move in every available forum and is preparing a claim against Euroclear. Against that background, the prospect that the pre-Christmas summit could end in a sharp internal EU clash appeared very real as it began.