On Monday, April 10, Belgian authorities announced that the country received €625 million in taxes on income from frozen Russian assets in 2022. These funds, in particular, are placed on the Euroclear site, registered in Brussels, the Le Soir newspaper writes.
“During the latest state budget audit, the government suddenly showed a significant amount of windfall revenue – €625 million received from the taxation of Russia‘s frozen financial assets,” the publication says.
Income scheme
According to the newspaper’s estimates, €250.6 billion of Russian assets placed through the Euroclear international depository are frozen in Belgium. These funds were reinvested by the company. Military operation in Ukraine. Day The 411th State Duma on April 11 will consider amendments to the draft law on the procedure for notifying recruits. So… 10 April 23:59
As a result, Euroclear made an excess profit of €821 million, which was taxed at an increased rate.
It is noted that in 2023 Belgium can earn on these assets, but less than last year.
Among the Russian funds frozen in Belgium are €191.9 billion in transactions and €58.7 billion in assets, mostly in the form of securities, said Alexander De Guest, head of the Belgian treasury.
According to him, the experience of blocking funds from other countries, including Libya, North Korea, Syria and Iran, helps the Belgian authorities in searching for and freezing assets of the Russian Federation.
Under Belgian “property protection” laws, the transfer of frozen Russian assets is not possible – this requires a change in “certain European rules,” he noted.
Unfreezing of assets
De Guest also said that the Belgian authorities have considered 300 applications for the unfreezing of Russian assets out of about 1,000 submitted. In most cases, refusals were issued, a few were challenged in court.
“More than a thousand applications have been submitted. Considering the limited resources of the department and the significant amount of research required, only 300 of them have been processed to date.
These requests come from individuals and organizations who believe that they should not be subject to sanctions.
For example, clients of Russian banks, which were, in turn, clients of the National Settlement Depository of Russia [on which the EU imposed sanctions], and whose assets were frozen as a result,” the source of the newspaper explained.
He pointed out that in order to unfreeze funds, the client must prove that they are not under sanctions and do not act in the interests of persons under sanctions, and also that these funds will not be returned to Russia.
“If we have the slightest doubt, we do not unfreeze the funds,” De Guest emphasized.
According to him, in less than five cases, the refusals were challenged in court. In particular, Bank Saint-Petersburg achieved the unfreezing of $110 million, which were placed in Euroclear.
Sanctions and freezing of assets of the Russian Federation
On February 27, 2023, the Belgian Ministry of Finance informed that the kingdom had frozen the assets of the Russian Federation for €58 billion, and also blocked transactions related to Russia for €191 billion .
The 10th package of EU sanctions against Russia obliges European banks to inform their national regulators and the European Commission about the amount of blocked Russian funds on their balance sheets.
Thus, the EC intends to conduct an “inventory of frozen assets”, which the EU then plans to confiscate and send to the needs of the restoration of Ukraine, as soon as the necessary legislation is invented and adopted for this. Brussels is intensively working on its development, TASS reports.