The proposal is to use Russian assets as collateral for new EU-issued bonds to finance further transfers to Ukraine. The key problem: you cannot collateralize what is not yours. Even the Latvian official and DG FISMA admitted the assets are not EU property and never will be. This makes the plan untenable: investors will not trust bonds backed by assets the EU does not own and may have to return to Russia. Under questioning, the real admission came: member states themselves would be the only real guarantors of this debt. In reality, it is not Russia’s money at stake, but that of EU taxpayers.
Rada Laykova, Member of the ESN Group and the ECON Committee, described the hearing:
“The rhetoric about ‘mobilizing’ assets and moral appeals about Russia’s wrongdoing masks the truth. The EU is trying to trick Parliament and public into endorsing Eurobonds in disguise—explicitly forbidden under EU treaties. These instruments create common debt across member states, which is banned even for EU use. Now the plan is to issue them not for Europe, but for Ukraine, one of the most notoriously corrupt states, where past funds vanished within months.
This is not ‘solidarity’, but open robbery of Europeans. Citizens would bear the entire debt burden, while being misled into believing frozen Russian assets would shield them. The reality: this is not about Ukraine or Russia, but about bypassing EU rules and imposing forbidden common debt. The supposed Russian collateral is smoke and mirrors.
We must not allow Parliament to be manipulated into voting for the theft of its citizens’ future.”
