00:00In a Euronews interview, EU Commissioner Hadja Labib defended Belgian resistance to unblocking frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine.
00:10At Thursday's EU Leaders' Summit, Belgium was accused of derailing efforts to issue a 140 billion euro loan to Ukraine using Russian immobilized assets, the bulk of which is held in Belgium.
00:22Labib echoed the Belgian government's demands for legal guarantees.
00:26We are not blocking the loans. We are also giving to Ukrainians interest of these loans that are blocked.
00:35It's the first in our history. We don't have an example to follow and it needs to be secured in a legal point of view. That's the only thing.
00:47Belgium fears Russian retaliation if Moscow demands its assets back and sanctions are undone.
00:53We need to secure the legal aspect to be sure that Belgium is not going to be brought in front of a court of justice later on.
01:04Financial support for Ukraine will likely be picked up again at another EU summit in December.
Comments