“There are six member states doing the job,” he said. “We have a situation where some Member States give us a lot of information, others give us information on very low amounts” and “it gets complicated when some countries don’t communicate”.
According to Reynders, Germany, France, Ireland, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg account for 12.7 billion euros of the 13.9 billion euros now frozen in the European Union, while the EU has 27 member states. The Belgian believes that other countries should do more to secure Russian money.
Not clear about the Netherlands
Not so long ago, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) announced that banks in the Netherlands had frozen or withheld €1.2 billion in Russian assets until mid-June. But the relationship between these figures and the amounts mentioned by Reynders is not entirely clear. In Germany, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in June that almost 4.5 billion euros had been frozen in his country
REPO, a special task force working on sanctions for countries, calculated late last month that more than $330 billion in financial resources had already been secured worldwide. It would be $30 billion in funds from oligarchs and $300 billion from the central bank in Moscow. Several luxury yachts and other property were also seized.
“Infuriatingly humble social media ninja. Devoted travel junkie. Student. Avid internet lover.”