Chancellor Merz calls for freezing of Russian assets

2025-12-17 21:45:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Chancellor Merz supports freezing 210 billion euros of Russian assets to help end the war in Ukraine.

In his speech to the German Bundestag regarding 2025, Chancellor Friedrich Merz hardly had any really good news: geopolitically, there are deep upheavals, the head of government declared. Germany's relationship with the US has changed radically. Russia's illegal war of aggression continues in Ukraine. Trade wars are weighing on the German economy, which is also facing serious difficulties at home due to "past inaction".

So all bad news. Many guarantees and things that were considered certain no longer apply even in Germany. Chancellor Merz spoke of a turning point and said that the world order is being replaced by disorder. Germany must actively respond to all these challenges, said the Chancellor: "We cannot sit back and watch while the world reorganizes. We are not the playthings of the superpowers."

Ukraine and Russian assets

The Chancellor is mainly talking about Germany's role in peace efforts in Ukraine. According to him, the question is how to achieve a "just peace." He recently initiated a meeting in Berlin between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump's negotiators to discuss a peace plan.

The Chancellor is in favor of using Russian assets frozen in European banks for Ukraine. "With this, we send a clear signal to Russia that we will use the assets deposited here to help end this war as soon as possible."

The majority of the 27 EU governments support using approximately 210 billion euros of Russian assets frozen in the EU to provide financial assistance to Ukraine over the coming years, both to support the country's reconstruction and to purchase modern weapons for the Ukrainian army.

But the governments of Hungary and Slovakia have announced that they are against freezing Russian assets and using them for Ukraine. Italy is also skeptical. Belgium also has significant reserves, because the banks of this small country hold a large part of the funds from Russia. Not without reason, the Belgian government fears that it could become a target of Russian retaliation. The US government also refuses to use the funds in their current form.

AfD: "This is not our fight"

The largest opposition party in the Bundestag, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a partly far-right party, is against it. The party's leader, Tino Chrupalla, said after the Chancellor's speech that he is categorically against the use of Russian funds. He said he had declared years ago that Ukraine could not win the war: "It was not and is not our war," Chrupalla said.

Chancellor Merz is at the forefront of those who support the use of Russian funds for Ukraine. It now remains to be seen whether Brussels will achieve a majority for this. Otherwise, his first eight months as Chancellor will end in a major defeat at the end of the year./ DW