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The future of Ukraine

2022-05-17T03:50:30.788Z


The reconstruction of the invaded country through the confiscation of Russian assets abroad must be in accordance with the rule of law


The European Union has launched the proposal to confiscate Russian assets abroad to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine.

The Brussels initiative encourages the States to make possible the use of the blocked accounts of the Bank of Russia in Western financial institutions, with dizzying figures, around 300,000 million euros, in addition to properties that are currently frozen such as yachts, mansions or land.

The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, decisively backed last Thursday the proposal that emerged from a heterogeneous group of socialist, popular, liberal, green and even ultra-conservative MEPs.

Michel went further than freezing Russian assets and called for facilitating "confiscation so that they are available to rebuild the country."

Both the president of the European Commission and the high representative of the EU, Josep Borrell, joined the measure.

The latter did so citing the recent example of the United States and the decision to seize billions of dollars from the Afghan National Bank to allocate them to humanitarian aid.

The slow evolution of the war must not prevent the planning of a viable future for a country demolished in vast areas of its territory.

Russian missiles and bombs have destroyed entire towns and neighbourhoods, collapsed half the businesses and blocked the export of grain from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, as well as systematically disabling all kinds of infrastructure: schools , hospitals, train stations, theaters, airports and industries.

The pending bills that this war will leave cannot be assessed yet, but they are going to be huge and multi-scale.

Ukraine's GDP will be reduced by between 25% and 35%, according to IMF estimates, but in the World Bank forecast the reduction will be more than 45%.

The same organism predicts a poverty of 20% of its population,

a figure that would multiply by more than 10 the 1.8% registered in 2021. Between a third and a half of the economy will be swept off the map this year.

The reconstruction costs, which are still preliminary calculated by prestigious economists linked to the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR, for its acronym in English) would reach up to half a billion euros.

The direct responsibility for this devastation falls on those who undertook a military invasion turned into a war of Ukrainian resistance thanks to the economic and military aid that the country obtained from its Western allies.

International coordination and political will will be the necessary instruments so that the money for reconstruction finds an adequate legal framework.

The complexity will be even greater if the measure also reaches the assets frozen abroad of the oligarchs close to Putin.

In any case, the EU should not give up exploring this and other measures to guarantee the future of Ukraine under the guidelines of the rule of law.


Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-05-17

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