“Taking Putin’s money and leaving the risks with [Belgium]. That’s not going to happen, let me be very clear about that,” Prime Minister Bart De Wever on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.
“If countries see that central bank money can disappear if European politicians see fit, they might decide to withdraw their reserves from the eurozone,” he added.
It’s kind of the same thing, honestly.
The question is if banking should be totally neutral or not, and if not, exactly how high the bar to start messing with people’s assets should be.
Waging a war of aggression for more than three years, massacring villages, abducting children… I don’t think the bar is particularly low here…
Yeah, and specifically in Europe, you were right about that. It’s hard to imagine that allowing Russia a pass wouldn’t just amount to total neutrality.
At the other end, “give your money to Europe and you can have it back when we feel like it” would being shooting yourselves in the foot. That’s too far in the other direction.
I get what you mean, but Russian assets at Euroclear belong to the Russian state and its so-called political ‘elite’, ordinary Russian don’t benefit at all.
Yes, I’m not suggesting it’s the people’s assets. The foreign people who’s assets Europe can mess with tend to be rich.
This is to support Ukraine. ‘Foreign people’ get nothing of that.
I’m not sure what you mean.
Foreign people, as opposed to local EU citizens, who probably have a European bank account regardless of their financial situation.