Tusk warns Europe can pay 'in money or blood' as EU weighs using frozen Russian assets

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : The choice on the table at a major EU summit in Brussels was between "money today or blood tomorrow", the Polish leader said.
55% : The loan drawing on frozen Russian assets only needs a majority of EU states to be approved, rather than the unanimous agreement of all 27.
54% : António Costa, the former Portuguese prime minister who chairs the EU summit, said Europe needed to put Ukraine in a strong position in peace talks.
50% : The Belgian government wants other EU states to provide it with "unlimited" guarantees that any costs from legal risks or financial retribution from Russia will be covered by the 27-state union as a whole.
48% : Belgium, where the vast majority of the assets are held on ice, has opposed the loan idea.
48% : "The aggressor has to pay for the damages done, not European taxpayers," said Estonian prime minister Kristen Michal. Portugal's prime minister Luís Montenegro said the summit of EU leaders was one of the most important in years.
47% : Discussions have been taking place between diplomats and officials for weeks in Brussels, to provide the Belgian government with solid assurances EU states will jointly cover the cost of practically all foreseeable legal or financial fallout from the loan.
46% : Mr Costa said the EU leaders would not leave Brussels without settling a financial package of aid to fund Ukraine.
45% : The EU's 27 leaders will be asked to support the legally complex loan that would keep Ukraine in the fight for at least another two years.
45% : Mr Orban has made it clear he would block a separate plan for a joint EU loan to Ukraine, as he opposes the union sending aid to Ukraine.
43% : The loan would be backed by Russian central bank cash that has been sitting inside EU financial institutions and banks, frozen by economic sanctions the union slapped on Moscow in the early weeks of the war.
39% : High-level political discussions have begun to unblock opposition to a plan financing a €90 billion loan to Ukraine, by tapping cash belonging to the Russian state, which has been "frozen" inside the EU since the start of the Ukraine war.
37% : The European Union's leaders needed to "rise to the occasion" and take difficult decisions to make sure Ukraine could keep holding off Russia's invading army, Poland's prime minister Donald Tusk has said.

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