German Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz will travel to Brussels on Friday to meet with Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Weber and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a bid to lift a block on reparations loans to Ukraine.
A European Commission spokesperson confirmed to Euronews that the three will meet for a private dinner at the Berlaymont building on Friday evening.
A spokesperson for Merz confirmed the trip, noting that a last-minute change of plans prompted the cancellation of the Norway trip.
The sudden move represents Chancellor Merz’s most forceful intervention to turn the bold proposal into reality and highlights the extraordinary stakes of the debate, with an EU summit scheduled in two weeks to take a final decision.
Under an unprecedented plan, the committee will remove the Russian central bank’s inactive assets. Interest-free loan facility For Ukraine.
Kiev will be required to repay the loan only after Russia agrees to compensate for the damage caused by the war of aggression, a virtually unthinkable scenario.
The bulk of the assets, around 185 billion euros, are held at Euroclear, the central securities depository in Brussels. Elsewhere in the bloc there is €25 billion.
This made Belgium the most formidable opponent of the initiative.
Last week, de Wever wrote: a poignant letter He slammed von der Leyen for reparation financing, saying it was “fundamentally wrong” and fraught with “multiple risks” that could cost both Belgium and Euroclear billions of euros.
“Why do we enter unknown legal and financial territory with all its possibilities if we can avoid it?” de Wever wrote.
“I do not commit that Belgium will in any way maintain on its own the risks and exposures arising from (a) compensation financing option.”
De Wever also said the untested project would be an obstacle to the White House’s continued push to forge an agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
“If we proceed too quickly with the proposed reparations financing scheme, the collateral damage would be to effectively prevent the EU from reaching a final peace agreement,” the Belgian prime minister wrote.
political conflict
Mr. de Wever’s views are in direct conflict with those of Mr. Merz, one of the most vocal proponents of the use of stuck Russian assets.
In an op-ed published Wednesday, Merz argued that all financial risks arising from reparation loans should be “jointly shared” and met by each member state “bearing the risks equally according to their economic capacity.”
“We must first agree politically on these principles and then implement them through legally binding provisions. It is unacceptable for any single country to bear a disproportionate burden,” Merz said.
“We fully understand the Belgian government’s concerns, especially given that the majority of frozen assets are held in Belgium and Brussels cannot rely solely on political guarantees. These concerns must be addressed in the upcoming debate on the legal text. Discussions must begin immediately and be concluded promptly.”
Mr. Mertz also pushed back against Russia and the United States, which sought to use the idled assets for other purposes. their own commercial interests The original 28-point peace plan has since been significantly revised.
“If we are serious about this, we cannot leave it to non-European countries to decide what happens to the financial resources of an aggressor country that are legally frozen in their own currencies within their own rule of law jurisdictions,” he said.
His intervention came as Ms von der Leyen unveiled the legal text needed to establish a reparations loan and begin payments to Ukraine in the second quarter of 2026, when foreign aid is scheduled to dry up.
Von der Leyen offered. Complete warranty This is to protect both Belgium and Euroclear.
The guarantees consist of bilateral contributions by member states, an EU budget backstop, safeguards against legal retaliation, and a new ban on the transfer of sovereign assets to Russia, eliminating the threat of a veto.
“We have built a very strong solidarity mechanism in which the European Union can ultimately intervene, because we want to ensure that all member states, especially Belgium, share the burden in a fair way, which is the European way,” von der Leyen said.
Shortly after her presentation, Belgium’s foreign minister slammed Ms von der Leyen for failing to address her country’s concerns in a “satisfactory manner”.
“We continue to struggle to understand why they would go against the legitimate concerns of member states,” he said.
The EU clock is ticking. EU leaders are scheduled to meet on December 18 for a make-or-break summit to decide how to meet Ukraine’s financial and military needs.
If Belgium’s concerns are not resolved and the reparations loan is scrapped, the EU will have to rely on financial markets to raise 90 billion euros in collective debt.
