How We Make Russia Pay Without Breaking Europe's Legal Spine: An Actual Plan

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

63% : A new regulation should: * Define a windfall contribution on extraordinary income from immobilised Russian sovereign assets.
60% : * Earmark the revenue for EU contributions to the IUCRF or a similar Ukraine facility.
59% : Layer two: Move the reparations engine outside the EU Next, get the main reparations engine out of the EU's legal system altogether.
58% : Frozen Russian assets: The EU's plans for a "reparations loan" for Ukraine (Funcas Intelligence Note FI-13).
57% : Legal acts adopted in May 2024 ensure that the net windfall profits earned by EU central securities depositories on immobilised Russian assets are channelled to support Ukraine's self-defence, defence industry, and reconstruction.
57% : Build in proportionality and reversibility Finally, every EU act in this space needs to wear proportionality and reversibility like a badge.
57% : Retrieved from https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/21/extraordinary-revenues-generated-by-immobilised-russian-assets-council-greenlights-the-use-of-windfall-net-profits-to-support-ukraine-s-self-defence-and-reconstruction/ Court of Justice of the European Union.
57% : Retrieved from https://opiniojuris.org/2023/01/17/the-un-general-assembly-resolution-on-reparations-for-aggression-against-ukraine-a-victory-for-the-international-rule-of-law/ United Nations General Assembly.
56% : The EU and its Member States would be big shareholders, but not the only ones.
56% : The EU kept its courts open, held its nerve, and won enough of the legal battles to win the strategic one.
56% : The UN General Assembly resolution on reparations for aggression against Ukraine: A victory for the international rule of law.
55% : Ordinary EU law can then focus on the financial engineering.
55% : Breakthrough The Deal You Never Heard of Can Keep the New Free World Together The EU Gave Trump What He Wanted.
55% : Retrieved from https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-eu-reparation-loan-as-solutio-damni-for-ukraine/
53% : The EU would simply be aligning its foreign policy with that line. 2.
53% : Reserve the assets as security Second, the CFSP decision should declare that, until Russia pays reparations, EU Member States will: * Maintain the immobilisation of Russian sovereign assets under their jurisdiction.
53% : Now imagine turning this patchwork into a permanent structure: an International Ukraine Compensation and Reconstruction Facility -- call it IUCRF -- created by treaty among the G7, the EU, and other willing states.
53% : A technical regulation that tells custodians exactly how to handle those encumbered assets -- what they can do, what they can't, and under what conditions any changes would be allowed.
53% : Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v Council of the European Union (Case C-872/19 P).
53% : EU Law Analysis.
52% : The only credible way to do that is a three-layer approach: * Put the big political decisions into EU foreign and security policy.
52% : The UN General Assembly has already adopted a resolution recognising the need for an international mechanism to deliver reparations to Ukraine.
51% : * Keep EU implementation narrow, technical, and built to survive EU law challenges in Luxembourg.
51% : A visible rules-based system with open reporting, clear criteria, and a direct link to UN resolutions is something other states can at least understand and predict.
50% : That line matters both in international law and in EU law.
50% : The idea is to raise large sums now -- for example, via EU-backed bonds or G7 loans -- and secure them on the future flow of profits from frozen Russian assets, plus the principal itself once Russia pays reparations.
50% : It is the EU regulating its own financial system so that Russian frozen assets are legally recognised as backing for Ukraine reconstruction loans.
49% : Side-by-side comparison of outright seizure of Russian reserves versus using their profits and collateral value to fund Ukraine while preserving EU legal credibility.
49% : Mandate a reparations mechanism Third, the same CFSP act should authorise the EU and its Member States to help create and join an international compensation and reconstruction mechanism for Ukraine.
49% : In other words: Europe's political decision is not "we, the EU, will run a solo reparations scheme", but "we, alongside partners, will help build a long-term, rules-based system that ensures Russia pays".
49% : * Attack the windfall-levy regulation, arguing that it is the real target.
48% : If Russia sues in Luxembourg, it can challenge EU implementing acts -- not the IUCRF's core decisions.
48% : Even if Russia scores the occasional point in Luxembourg, the likely outcome is some tweaks to EU rules, not the demolition of the whole strategy.
47% : than 27 national parliaments improvising confiscation laws on the fly. Layer three: EU plumbing that survives Luxembourg With CFSP carrying the politics and the IUCRF carrying the architecture, the last step is to make the EU-level plumbing as boring and litigation-proof as possible.
47% : To do that inside EU law, you would combine: *
46% : Right now, the EU and its partners have immobilised Russian state assets; they have not confiscated them.
46% : It can: * Bend or break its own legal order to get faster access to the frozen Russian assets, or * Treat lawfare as another front in the conflict and design a system that is coherent in EU law and international law -- then let Moscow rage against it in court and lose.
46% : Layer one: Put the politics into CFSP Start where the Court's grip is weakest: CFSP, the EU's foreign and security policy pillar.
45% : Politics at the top, a G7+ reparations engine in the middle, and narrow EU law at the bottom all working together to make Russia pay without breaking the EU's legal order.
45% : Crucially, the IUCRF's decisions would be acts of an international body, not EU acts.
45% : The EU reparation loan as solutio damni for Ukraine.
44% : * Under the UN Charter and customary international law, it owes full reparations for the damage.
43% : * Move the reparations engine into a wider G7-style coalition, not just the EU.
42% : Legally, the key point is simple: the addressees are EU-based financial operators, not the Russian Federation.
42% : If the EU can show that using the fruits of frozen Russian assets is the least drastic effective measure, its chances in Luxembourg rise sharply.
42% : * Design EU-level windfall levies and prudential rules that quietly feed money into that facility, while surviving the exact EU law scrutiny Russia threatens to invoke.
41% : How the EU can get frozen Russian assets funding Ukraine without detonating its own legal order.
41% : That matters for EU law.
39% : It freezes Western assets in Moscow, threatens seizures against European firms, and mocks internal EU arguments about what is "legal" under its own rules.
39% : Europe Has a Better Weapon Double Majority Problem: The switch-hit Parliament that hands Moscow time EU versus Europe: A Strategic Distinction for Effective Diplomacy EU-US Trade Deal: Keep the Tariffs, Save the Climate Rules End the Veto Trap or Don't Rely on the EU: Relearning Power in European Defence Europe Pays, America Builds: Inside the Interim Ukraine Funding Machine European Strategic Autonomy Begins With Power From Fringe to Power: How Europe's Populist Right Won 2015-2025 Is Europe's Identity Crisis Finally Solved? Maria Corina Machado wins the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Means, Motive, Opportunity:
38% : On the EU side, the Court of Justice has already made life awkward for everyone who wants to treat Russia as a legal non-person.
38% : This is not EU sheriffs kicking down the vault door and hauling cash out by the bag.
38% : EU sanctions and Russia's frozen assets (Study 754487).
37% : It May Never Get Its Dignity Back The "Family Spy" Problem: When a Russia-aligned EU Member Runs HUMINT on Brussels They Don't Need You: How Russia Wins Elections Without Changing Your Mind When a Democracy Cheats: What the EU Does About Hungary Why We Must Ban Russian Soldiers Your Amazon Orders Fund a Democratic Crisis Will We See a Hungarian Spring?
34% : So if the EU tries a simple "we're taking the lot", it runs three risks at once: * Legal risk: a serious chance of defeat in the Court of Justice on proportionality, property, and fundamental rights grounds.
34% : What it cannot easily do is use EU courts to kill the reparations mechanism itself, because the core decisions belong to the IUCRF, not to the EU.
33% : That's the uncomfortable truth: if the EU wants to stay a rules-based power and a serious enemy of Russia, it can't just smash the piggy bank and walk away.
32% : The Intelligence Playbook Hungary Screwed in Brussels References Council of the European Union.
23% : The Budapest Plot to Slice and Dice the EU Orbán's 3-Point Kremlin Playbook Against EU Security Political Chimps in Suits: Why German MPs Humiliated Merz and Why it Wasn't a Crisis Russian Identity Politics Are Inexorably Ripping Europe

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