The European Union is considering introducing a “thirteenth package” of sanctions against Russia to coincide with the second anniversary of the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which falls on February 24. A European diplomatic source explains this with a view to the Foreign Affairs Council meeting next Monday in Brussels. However, it is “too early,” he says, to know what it will contain (the 12th document, approved last December, focused on diamond imports). Meanwhile, the source adds, “member states are moving toward consensus” on the thorny issue of using the proceeds from the freeze of Russian funds to support Ukraine, but “I don’t think this is part of the 13th century.” Sanctions package will be.” “. The issue is delicate, so much so that before the summer the ECB had “stopped” the commission for fear of repercussions on the euro, but the idea is not to freeze the assets at the Russian Central Bank to help Ukraine, which would change the freezing into an enforcement, but rather to use the income generated by the freezing and their retention on the balance sheets of the clearing houses or clearing houses (Euroclear and Clearstream) to support Ukraine In practice, for example, the bonds held by the Russian Central Bank and frozen due to the sanctions in the EU generate coupons that would normally be paid out to the holder, but now, due to the sanctions, the clearing companies remain on the balance sheets, the profits from this in theirs Achieve liquidity “parked” on balance sheets. These proceeds, that is, not the coupons, but the interest generated by the use of these coupons, could be withdrawn and used to support Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia.
