(Adnkronos) – Italy backs the use of frozen Russian assets for a 140 billion euro loan from the European Union to embattled Ukraine, but legal experts must first identify a fail-safe mechanism for such a loan, foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday.
“Italy is in favour of using frozen Russian Central Bank assets for an EU loan to support Ukraine,” Tajani told reporters on the sidelines of a EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting.
“However, work needs to be done on an appropriate legal basis so there can be no boomerang effect, especially for the financial stability of the euro area,” Tajani warned.
Tajani was doubling down on calls he made last month for legal experts to carry out an in-depth analysis of the planned loan for Ukraine together with the European Central Bank.
Ukraine is pushing European allies to release the 140 billion euro loan to plug a looming hole in its 2026 military budget as EU leaders are due to look at the loan again at their 17 December summit after they failed to agree on it last month amid concerns raised by Belgium.
Besides the option of using frozen Russian assets for the ‘reparations loan’, the bloc is also mulling individual grants from EU countries and borrowing on financial markets, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in a letter this week to the 27 EU member states.
Von der Leyen’s letter estimated that Ukraine’s remaining needs for 2026-2027 amounted to 135.7 billion euros
“The important thing is to find a solution on the use of frozen Russian assets. We are in favour of using these assets to support Ukraine, but we need to identify the legal basis… it is only a legal issue, not a political one,” said Tajani.
“We need to say how this can be done and how to ensure the stability of the eurozone…we cannot make mistakes when taking actions of this kind. Otherwise, they risk backfiring: we must avoid this at all costs,” Tajani added.
Tajani reaffirmed Italy’s unwavering support for Ukraine in its 45-month-old war with Russia, following Moscow’s full-scale military invasion of the former Soviet republic in February 2022.
“Our new Italian (military aid) package is ready. The necessary weapons will be sent,” Tajani concluded.
Italy’s defence minister Guido Crosetto will unveil to the parliament’s Copasir security committee the government’s 12th military aid package for Ukraine on 2 December, after the Supreme Defence Council constitutional body chaired by president Sergio Mattarella greenlit the package on Monday.
