“The money will serve to support #Ukraine‘s recovery and military defence in the context of the Russian aggression,” the Belgian government, which holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, said in a message on X, formerly Twitter.
Ninety percent of the profits will be used to buy weapons, while the remaining 10 percent will go towards non-military aid.
The agreement paves the way for the EU to send the money to the war-torn country in July.
The initiative is separate from a wider-ranging push by the U.S. to confiscate the assets in their entirety to support Ukraine, a move that is being rejected by the biggest EU governments over fears about legal and financial-volatility repercussions.
‘Accounting trick’
As POLITICO reported on Tuesday, the Belgian government had signaled that from 2025 it will funnel the tax revenue from the profts into a common EU or G7 fund for Ukraine. The tax income amounted to €1.7 billion in 2024.
This comes after the U.S. and several EU countries — led by Germany — heaped pressure on the Belgian government to hand over the cash to Ukraine, as POLITICO first reported.
“The Belgian federal government is prepared to consider a voluntary arrangement from fiscal year 2025 onwards with the EU/G7 to transfer the windfall national corporate taxation from frozen Russian sovereign assets,” according to a Belgian government statement seen by POLITICO.
