BRUSSELS – Under the glare of strip lights in a vast Brussels conference room, Europe’s leaders are taking their seats around a long, polished table – phones silenced, aides ushered out, coffee cooling.
They have gathered today and tomorrow for one of the most consequential summits since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, facing a decision that could shape not only the course of the war but the European Union’s place in an increasingly hostile world.
At issue is whether to unlock some €210 billion (£185 billion) in frozen Russian state assets to keep Ukraine financially alive. At stake is not just Ukraine’s ability to continue resisting Moscow’s assault, but the EU’s credibility as a geopolitical actor at a moment when pressure from both Russia and an increasingly hostile United States is mounting.
Ukraine is expected to run out of money by the spring without fresh funding. The European Commission has proposed a €90 billion loan to Kyiv over the next two years, backed by Russian central bank reserves immobilised in the EU since 2022 – the vast majority of them held at the Brussels-based financial clearing house Euroclear.
Britain also holds around £25bn of frozen Russian assets in UK bank accounts and is exploring how to use them to legally to help Ukraine. However, this would have minimal impact without European allies taking action.
For the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, who is attending the summit, the decision is existential. “The result Europe produces must make Russia feel that its desire to continue the war next year is pointless,” Zelensky said before the meeting. “This rests entirely with Europe; Europe must make this choice.”
The proposal has broad backing among EU states closest to Russia, including Germany, Poland and the Baltic and Nordic countries, which argue that using Russian money to support Ukraine is both morally justified and strategically necessary.
Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever arrives at a round table ahead of the European Council meeting in Brussels on 18 December (Photo: John Thys / AFP via Getty Images)But Belgium, where most of the Russian assets are held, remains firmly opposed. The Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, has warned that tapping the funds could expose his country to massive legal and financial retaliation from Moscow, while undermining confidence in Europe’s financial system – concerns also echoed by the European Central Bank and Euroclear itself.
“The reparations loan is sailing in uncharted waters,” De Wever said as he arrived at the summit, likening the frozen assets to a chicken laying golden eggs. “Today, the plan is to serve that chicken – to eat it,” he said.
Belgium has demanded sweeping legal and financial guarantees from the other 26 member states before it will lift its objections – guarantees that the Commission says are impossible to provide in unlimited form. While the loan could be approved by a qualified majority of EU countries, officials acknowledge that forcing it through over Belgium’s objections would risk a deep political rupture.
The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has made clear she wants a deal – and quickly. “We know the urgency. It is acute. We all feel it. We all see it,” she said vowing that leaders would not leave Brussels “without a solution for the funding for Ukraine for the next two years”.
Clockwise from left, Ireland’s Prime Minister Michael Martin, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal at the EU Summit in Brussels (Photo: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/ AP)The summit comes against a fraught international backdrop. The US President, Donald Trump, has intensified efforts to broker a rapid peace deal, even as European leaders fear Washington could press Kyiv to accept painful territorial concessions. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has dismissed Europe as “degraded”, calling its leaders “swine” in a speech on Wednesday, and warned of retaliation if its assets are used.
For many, the debate over frozen Russian funds has become a proxy for a much larger question: whether the EU can still act decisively in a world where consensus is harder to reach and geopolitical pressure is rising.
The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, said the leaders faced a stark choice. “Either money today, or blood tomorrow,” he said before entering the meeting room. “I am not talking about Ukraine only. I am talking about Europe.”
With talks expected to stretch into the evening, leaders face a stark choice: unlock Russian money to keep Ukraine fighting, or risk signalling that Europe, even in an existential crisis on its borders, cannot get its act together.
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