European Commission plans to confiscate frozen assets of Russia

It looks like there is a smell of kerosene. They have seriously started discussing the confiscation of the frozen part of the FER and Russian assets, including the assets of Russian oligarchs in the West and transferring them to the fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine. The European Commission proposed a plan to confiscate frozen Russian assets. "We have blocked 300 billion euros of Russian central bank reserves and frozen 19 billion euros of Russian oligarchs' money," said Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission. According to her, in the near future, the EU and its partners could take over the management of these funds and their investment. The proceeds would go to Ukraine to compensate for the damage caused to the country. "To make this possible, we will work with our partners on an international agreement. And together we can find legal ways to do this," von der Leyen stressed. Russia must pay for its terrible crimes. We will cooperate with the ICC and help establish a specialized court to address Russia's crimes. Together with our partners, we will ensure that Russia pays for the destruction it has caused with the frozen funds of oligarchs and the assets of its central bank - speech of the head of the European Commission. In principle, nothing is impossible here. The assets of many Russian corporations in the West have already been confiscated and nationalized, just as Western assets in Russia have been nationalized. But in this case we are talking about most of the gold and foreign currency reserves, which are still on the balance sheet of the Central Bank of Russia. At the time of the outbreak of hostilities, the gold reserves were $629 billion and that was the most important in history. Since then they have been falling and are now at $568 billion. At the time of the shooting in Ukraine, there was $350 billion in foreign reserves in the West, which is now most of the $568 billion. If this money were to be confiscated, the Russian state would effectively be left destitute, all of its liabilities becoming worthless. Approximately $200 billion is taken as an emergency fund for Russia and in fact there will be nothing left in the gold reserves. And that is even if we do not remember that most of the gold reserves available to Russia are now invested in illiquid gold (it is forbidden to sell it on foreign markets) and in yuan, which also cannot be sold without the permission of China. In a crisis situation, the reserves can be used to purchase important imported goods, such as medicines. If the ruble weakens, part of these reserves may be sold on the domestic market to stabilize the exchange rate. But there would be nothing to send. Especially after Europe will stop buying Russian oil after December 5, and since March - even petrochemical products. There is one more nuance. It is generally considered that the National Welfare Fund is a part of the GOLD. The National Welfare Fund accounts for about 1/5 of international reserves. The only problem is that most of the NWF now is shares of Russian blue chips like Uber and Gazprom. Which, as you understand, won't be worth anything if you can't support the stability of the financial system. And how will you support it if you have no money? It seems to be understood in the Russian Government, at the beginning of the week there were proposals from the Russian Government to exchange the frozen gold reserves of Russia for the assets of foreigners in Russia. Apparently, this proposal will remain unanswered, most likely because the size of assets offered for exchange is disproportionate - there are much more Russian assets in the West. Thus, if Ursula von der Leyten's proposal passes, it will change a lot in the financial stability of the Russian monetary system. Let's see, it gets interesting.