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PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   283 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 11, 2025

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And the winner of the 2025 mental gymnastics olympics is EU

https://archive.is/HaqSi

The EU’s ambassadors handed emergency powers to the European Commission to keep €210 billion in Russian state assets blocked until the Kremlin pays post-war reparations to Ukraine, the Danish Council presidency announced on Thursday.

The EU’s new emergency powers will remain in place until “Russia ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine, and provides reparations to Ukraine,” according to a legal text, seen by POLITICO, that was backed by the EU’s 27 ambassadors on Thursday afternoon.

Kremlin-friendly countries are thereby set to lose their power to release the sanctioned money simply by voting "no" on sanctions renewal. Were that to happen after the EU provided an assets-backed loan to Kyiv, the EU's 27 capitals would be on the hook to repay the loan to Russia.

The EU justified the seismic legal change on the grounds that handing back the assets to Russia would wreak havoc on the EU economy — and potentially fuel hybrid attacks by the Kremlin across the bloc.

Keeping the assets frozen “is a measure that is appropriate in order to avoid further repercussions of unprecedented magnitude on the economic situation of the Union caused by Russia’s actions,” the Commission wrote in the legal text.

So to explain - EU breaking the law will cause economical damage to EU, which is emergency, so we need to further break the current laws to prevent them. The idea of just not doing the initial breaking of the law hasn't come to their tiny minds.

Isn't this just talk?

The EU’s new emergency powers will remain in place until “Russia ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine, and provides reparations to Ukraine,” according to a legal text, seen by POLITICO, that was backed by the EU’s 27 ambassadors on Thursday afternoon.

They can just undo the emergency powers whenever they want, if they decide it's expedient. Either take the assets or don't take them, playing games over who has the authority to take or return them reeks of impotence and disunity.

What is the point of this? The war has already cost Europe trillions in economic damage and energy costs, they took that blow fairly well. They can keep printing money if they want to, it's not like they're about to go bankrupt without that 200 billion. Europe's shortfalls are in materiel not finance. It's not like there are dozens of empty Russian shell factories in Europe that, with the stroke of an official's pen, they can take and rev up to produce munitions for Ukraine. These 'assets' are just bonds, just pieces of paper. The order book for munitions, spare transformers, air defences and so on is already full, no amount of paper assets is going to provide much help.

Plus it was staggeringly silly for Russia to hold Chinese bonds in Europe, I don't know why they'd possibly think that was a smart thing to do. It's like how Venezuela has its gold in the UK for some reason. Not your vaults, not your gold!

Ukraine's civil economy has been leveled, they're importing basically everything (from energy to vehicles, electronics and pharmaceuticals). Someone has to pay for that (not the Ukrainians, they're broke).

Ackshually, it's illegal to take the assets of the irredentist country that is in actual and hybrid war in Europe

Ok, we'll make it legal

Oh no! Not like this

Agreed though, Europe needs to find its spine... Daddy Putin shows us how it's done: https://boereport.com/2024/05/20/moscow-takes-control-over-assets-of-western-companies/ https://kyivindependent.com/russia-advancing-legal-changes-to-confiscate-western-assets-reuters-reports/ https://www.reuters.com/business/moscow-takes-control-over-assets-western-companies-2023-07-27/

Except the irredentist country is not in any kind of war with Europe. But yeah - just steal them. Because this is in no way legal. There is no economic emergency. There will never be economic emergency.

But this is what happens when you have diversity hires in top EU positions.

Except the irredentist country is not in any kind of war with Europe.

The country all but says outright that its war is with Europe and Ukraine is just a proxy. Europe doesn't appear to disagree.

this is what happens when you have diversity hires in top EU positions.

If there were less diversity hires I would expect Europe to take the funds immediately and in general be less of a pussy.

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