A Loan to Nowhere
The
grand plan was simple. Brussels would grab immobilized Russian assets, wave a
magic legal wand, and turn them into hundreds of billions for Kiev. Ursula von
der Leyen and Friedrich Merz pushed it as a geopolitical masterstroke, a form
of moral accounting and a financial cruise missile aimed at Moscow. In reality,
it never made it off the launch pad.
By
early Friday, António Costa emerged to announce the consolation prize: a €90
billion loan backed by the EU budget to keep Kiev solvent until 2027. In other
words, the “reparations loan” is dead. The big crusade became another committee
overdraft.
Zelenskiy,
in his signature wartime Zoom-evangelist mode, begged them to go big.
Confiscating Russian money was, he explained, “moral, fair and legal.” It was
also, apparently, the final benchmark of NATO credibility: if the EU cannot
seize someone else’s assets on demand, what good is any “security guarantee”?
One
senior EU official summed up the performance with admirable candor: “We talked
a big game for nothing.”
Belgium’s
Bart De Wever had already warned that using Russian funds without legal cover
was a great way to invite retaliation. He demanded risk-sharing guarantees
across the EU. After hours of improvisation, legal acrobatics, and regulatory
necromancy, the Commission still could not produce terms that would not explode
Belgium’s finances.
De
Wever’s obituary for the scheme was crisp: “It was like a sinking ship, like
the Titanic, and at the end it was finished.” Brussels supplied the iceberg.
Von der
Leyen and Merz, whose political futures now depend on pretending failure is
innovation, insisted this was a triumph. Ukraine only has to repay the loan if
Russia pays reparations. A conditional fantasy counts as fiscal prudence. Merz
even claimed the mechanism was his idea in the first place. Twelve hours
earlier he had said the reparations plan was the “only option” to keep Kiev
alive past April 2026.
The
method of failure was classic Brussels. Leaders locked their phones away and
tried to “be serious.” Italy and France were indifferent. Denmark threatened
procedural warfare, then folded. Four hours later, there was no path to
consensus on €210 billion of imaginary revenue.
The
breakthrough came when Emmanuel Macron - Europe’s self-appointed Jupiter-in-chief - made
a personal pilgrimage to Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian premier, currently aligned
with Czech PM Andrej Babiš and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, agreed to back a €90
billion loan on one condition: none of them pays a cent.
The
final text dutifully states that the loan “will not have an impact on the
financial obligations” of Hungary, Slovakia, or the Czech Republic. Three
capitals secured neutrality, zero liability, and immunity from Brussels
accounting games.
They
also happen to be politically aligned with Donald Trump, who has his own ideas
about those frozen Russian assets. When the Dominion of Brussels meets The Art
of the Deal, the Commission generally blinks.
Orbán
delivered the post-mortem with brutal efficiency: “Despite the recent farces,
this use of Russian frozen assets is a dead thing.”
To keep
the illusion alive, the EU invoked a shaky “emergency” clause to immobilize the
assets permanently - a pre-emptive strike on Orbán’s bargaining
leverage. Brussels calls this leadership.
De
Wever, now the accidental statesman, graciously declared that “everybody can
leave this meeting room victoriously.” Belgium’s defense minister was less
poetic: “The EU has been taught a democratic lesson.”
Sweden
chimed in to explain that Belgium would have paid its share - if
guarantees existed. They did not.
So Kiev
gets enough to crawl into 2027. Russia gets a message of European “unity.” And
Brussels gets another ceremonial document proving that when the time comes to
act, the bloc chooses press conferences over power.
The
summit promised a financial battering ram against Moscow. It delivered a group
therapy session for people who still believe declarations are outcomes.