The foreign ministers of four nations sent a letter addressed to Kaja Kallas, the head of European diplomacy, and Helen McEntee, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs. In it, they argued that the time has come to resume the discussion on how to maximize the use of paralyzed Russian assets to benefit Ukraine.
This missive was issued before the informal meeting of foreign ministers, which will take place in Ireland, taking advantage of Ireland's presidency of the Council of the European Union. The governments recognized that the issue is intrinsically complex and requires seeking solutions that respect the legitimate interests of all involved parties.
As a subsequent measure, the signatories suggested that technical experts from the Commission be invited to investigate, in close consultation with Member States, new modalities for employing the immobilized assets in favor of Ukraine. They emphasized the need to ensure that the risk is shared by everyone and that no Member State bears a disproportionate burden.
The technical analysis and debate must include the management of financial and economic risks, as well as respect for international law, as the countries insisted, highlighting that this discussion is of common interest.
The initiative is led by Sweden and involves countries located in the north, west, south, and east of the European Union, aiming to reactivate a debate that had been interrupted at the end of last year.
This topic had already been proposed by the European Commission in 2025, through a suggestion for a reparation loan to Ukraine, which would allow the mobilization of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the EU. However, this proposal did not progress, mainly due to reservations from Belgium, where most of these assets are concentrated, through the Euroclear securities clearing house.
Belgium expressed concern about exposing itself to possible Russian litigation and high financial risks should Moscow contest the use of these assets. Despite this, the EU already uses the income and extraordinary profits generated by these frozen assets to support Ukraine, but the direct use of the assets themselves remains controversial.
In December 2025, the European Council decided to grant a loan of 90 billion euros to Ukraine for the period 2026-2027, financing it with European debt, but left open the work regarding the so-called reparation loan.
Currently, the four countries seek to restart this debate, proposing that the European executive study new ways to use the assets, distributing the risks among all Member States.
Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, the EU and partners from the G7 group (the seven largest world economies) have frozen hundreds of billions of euros in reserves of the Bank of Russia. It is estimated that about 210 billion euros are currently in the EU, with the majority deposited in Euroclear.
At the next meeting of EU foreign ministers, Portugal will be represented by Paulo Rangel, representing the responsible minister.