German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was making one last push to persuade EU leaders to use €210bn in frozen Russian sovereign assets to help Ukraine when he realised he lacked a critical ally: Emmanuel Macron.
In the weeks leading up to Thursday’s summit in Brussels, the French president did not publicly oppose the German proposal. Privately, however, his team voiced reservations about its legality and warned that his indebted country would struggle to issue a national guarantee in case the assets had to be returned to Moscow on short notice.
As more countries, including Italy, sided with Belgium, where the bulk of the Russian assets are located and whose government opposed the plan from the outset, Macron joined in, killing the idea.
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