EU set to put forward proposal to spend Russian state assets

The majority of the Russian Central Bank assets [in the EU], of which vast majority are held in Belgium, the big argument has been how can you use those assets in a way which accords with international law and, as the Belgians keep reminding everyone, doesn't expose Belgium to unnecessary legal risk. In short, what I think has finally been agreed, is that these assets will be used as collateral for loans made to Ukraine to support its defence and its general budgetary requirements. And Belgium have been the stick in the mud throughout all of this, and obviously they've now been given sufficient assurances by the EU that they won't be on their own should Russia come knocking, and in the courts too. Throughout the full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the big issue that the EU has faced, particularly on sanctions, is that they have tried to take decisions on a unanimous basis. So of course, one country, like Hungary, sympathetic to the Kremlin, could scupper all the efforts of the other twenty-six. And so trying to find ways to operate on a so-called qualified majority basis has is the holy grail in the EU. And obviously they seem to have found a way by using this emergency power to do that and thus to circumvent any objections Hungary or Slovakia or anyone else might have to the action that's being proposed."