Media: Belgium aims to fund military spending from Russian assets revenues

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has refused to support the European Commission’s proposal to expropriate Russian sovereign assets blocked on the Euroclear platform, citing budgetary considerations.

According to Soir, Belgium could receive around €1.2 billion per year in taxes from income generated by the reinvestment of these assets, Caliber.Az reports. 

While Euroclear’s unplanned revenues are already being partially transferred to the European Commission to support Ukraine, they also replenish Belgian state coffers, as such income is subject to Belgian taxation.

The newspaper notes that Belgium plans to use these revenues mainly to finance military spending between 2025 and 2029. Soir also points out that the tax rate on emergency or unplanned corporate revenues in Belgium exceeds 30%.

At the EU summit on October 23, De Wever declined to support the Commission’s plan to expropriate Russian assets under the so-called “reparation credit” scheme, demanding written guarantees from all EU countries that Belgium would not bear the financial risks alone.

De Wever, founder of the right-wing Flemish party N-VA, is an active advocate of Belgian militarisation.

Together with party colleague and Defence Minister Theo Francken, he has developed a programme to invest €34 billion in Belgium’s military over the coming years, though the government has not yet determined the sources of funding for this plan.

By Sabina Mammadli