EU must decide on frozen Russian assets in March - Lithuanian foreign minister

2025-02-24
BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS - The European Union will have to make decisions in March on Russian assets frozen in the bloc, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said on Monday.

"I believe March is the deadline for us to decide because after that, we'll simply be too late, everything will be gone, and we'll just be sitting, shrugging in resignation, regretting, and feeling sad," Budrys, who is taking part in the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting, told Lithuania's public broadcaster LRT.

"To avoid that, we have to finalize things for ourselves in the coming weeks," he added.

According to Budrys, Lithuania is urging the EU to "push this process forward."

"We'd finally gain another significant lever as Europe. This will certainly be a reason to invite us to the (negotiating) table, provide a resource to support Ukraine, and give us leverage to influence Russia," the minister said.

"I don't understand why we keep stalling here," he added.

According to Budrys, the EU previously raised legal concerns about using frozen Russian assets, but Lithuania presented its analysis on how to get around them.

"Now, I hear that this involves economic and financial risks. Let's look at what those risks are and share them. (...) Each EU country that is part of the collective decision can take on certain risks," the foreign minister said.

"We have to make a decision because, right now, it feels like the tool is on the table, yet for some reason, we're not picking it up," he added.

In early January, the European Commission disbursed the first 3 billion euros to Ukraine of the EU part of a G7 loan, to be repaid with proceeds from immobilized Russian assets.

Since February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU has frozen around 229 billion euros of Russia's central bank funds, the bulk of Moscow's frozen assets worldwide.

In late January, Budrys said that frozen Russian assets could be returned in exchange for Moscow's compensation to Ukraine.