The European Union is urgently seeking funds for Ukraine, which faces a projected $50 billion budget shortfall next year.
Belgian clearinghouse Euroclear could initiate legal action against the EU if the bloc attempts to confiscate Russian sovereign funds held there, CEO Valerie Urbain told Le Monde in an interview published on Saturday.
The depository, which handles roughly $46 trillion in securities for global financial institutions annually, currently holds approximately $200 billion of the $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets frozen in the West following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
Urbain stated that any measure resembling confiscation would be unlawful, and Euroclear is prepared to sue the EU should the bloc try to compel its compliance on the matter.
“There are laws. Depending on the legal framework, we will decide what we can and want to do,” she added.
When asked to elaborate, Urbain indicated that legal action is “not out of the question.”
“The most important thing for Euroclear is credibility and trust… We are a crucial link that must remain infallible for the stability of financial markets.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been advocating for the use of frozen Russian assets to back a €140 billion ($160 billion) loan to Ukraine, an initiative that Belgium has opposed, insisting on guarantees that the legal and financial risks will be shared across the EU.
The bloc’s decision to reclassify interest generated from these immobilized funds as “windfall profits” not belonging to Moscow – and to use them to fund Kiev – has already stretched legal definitions.
However, Ukraine’s Western backers reportedly can no longer afford to continue funding it without seizing Russia’s sovereign funds, according to recent publications in the and .
Kiev has also encountered difficulties securing a new loan from the International Monetary Fund, a process further complicated by the extensive corruption recently uncovered in Ukraine.
According to the country’s KSE institute, Kiev’s deteriorating budget is confronting an annual deficit of $53 billion, which Western benefactors are expected to finance.
Moscow has consistently stated that it would view any attempts to confiscate its Central Bank assets as “theft” that would fundamentally undermine third countries’ trust in Western financial institutions.