The EC reported on the freezing of assets of Russian "oligarchs" for € 21.5 billion

The European Commission (EC) has frozen Russian assets in Europe in the amount of €21.5 billion, European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders said, Interfax Ukraine reports.

“We had the opportunity to freeze €21.5 billion of assets of Russian oligarchs and organizations included in the sanctions list,” Reynders said.

He noted that the European Commission will continue to work on freezing various types of assets, including the reserves of the Central Bank of RUSSIA. According to him, the European Union is developing a guide to tougher penalties for circumventing sanctions.

He explained that this is a step-by-step process that does not exclude the confiscation of assets related to criminal offenses.

On February 10, BLOOMBERG reported that lawyers recommended that EU countries ask banks for detailed information on the amount of frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank if Brussels wants to use these funds to restore Ukraine.

According to the agency, the legal service of the EU sent out a recommendation to member countries of the bloc, which states that EU law allows the frozen funds to be sent to help Kyiv. However, first, the authorities must establish exactly how much of the assets of the Bank of Russia and other state structures were blocked.

According to Bloomberg, European officials believe that we can talk about $ 258 billion, they made these conclusions based on data from the Central Bank report last year.

But in reality, the EU countries reported a €33.8 billion asset freeze (that is, about 86% of the amount remains unfrozen). In March 2022, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the total value of assets that Moscow can no longer use due to blocking in the West is about $300 billion.

On February 15, Bloomberg, citing a draft proposal from the European Commission, reported that the EU, as part of the tenth package of anti-Russian sanctions, intends to oblige banks to transfer data on the frozen assets of the Bank of Russia.