BRUSSELS: Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever has called an EU plan to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine “fundamentally wrong,” throwing further doubt on a push by Brussels to agree the move next month.
In a letter to European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen seen by AFP Friday, De Wever pushed back strongly on the initiative and urged Brussels against venturing “into unchartered legal and financial waters.”
The EU executive, and multiple member states, are pressing for the bloc to tap immobilized Russian central bank assets to provide Kyiv with a 140-billion-euro ($162 billion) loan to plug looming budget black holes.
Belgium is the key voice on the issue as it hosts international deposit organization Euroclear, where the vast bulk of the assets are held.
De Wever has repeatedly said the plan could leave his country facing crippling legal and financial reprisals from Moscow — and called for cast-iron guarantees from other EU countries that they will share the risk.
“I will never commit Belgium to sustain on its own the risks and exposures,” he wrote in the four-page letter.
He said he would only agree to the scheme at a crunch EU leaders’ summit on December 18 if binding guarantees “are delivered and signed by member states at the time of decision.”
De Wever’s letter comes as von der Leyen has promised to come up with legal texts soon laying out the exact proposed structure of the scheme.
EU officials have asserted that the risks for Belgium of a successful legal challenge are small — an argument rebutted by the straight-talking De Wever.
“Let me use the analogy of a plane crash: aircraft are the safest way of transportation and the chances of a crash are low, but in the event of a crash the consequences are disastrous,” he said.
Clamour to harness the Russian assets has grown in the EU after a US plan to stop the war in Ukraine that emerged last week suggested the assets should be unfrozen.
Proponents argue that if the bloc does not act now to use the money, then it risks losing control of it under a potential US-backed peace deal.
The proposed EU “reparations loan” envisages that Ukraine would only pay back the funds once Russia has coughed up for the damages inflicted by its invasion.
In the face of Belgian opposition to the plan, von der Leyen has laid out other options to keep financing Kyiv, including EU countries taking out joint borrowing.
The commission has warned that those options would prove more costly for member states at a time when many are struggling with stretched national budgets.
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Belgian PM digs in against EU push to use Russian assets for Ukraine
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Belgian PM digs in against EU push to use Russian assets for Ukraine
- De Wever pushed back strongly on the initiative and urged Brussels against venturing “into unchartered legal and financial waters”
In India’s mining belt, women spark hope with solar lamps
BEAWAR: Santosh Devi is proud to have brought light — and hope — to her hamlet in western India, taking up solar engineering through a program for women like her whose husbands suffer chronic disease from mining work.
Her husband is bedridden with silicosis, a respiratory illness caused by inhaling fine silica dust which is common across some 33,000 mines in Rajasthan state, where the couple and their four children live.
Santosh, 36, has joined seven other women for a three-month course at Barefoot College in Tilonia, a two-hour drive from her village in the desert state’s Beawar district.
There, the group learned the basics of solar engineering — installing panels, wiring them, and assembling and repairing lamps — to help light up homes and provide electricity for anything from charging phones to powering fans.
With their sick husbands out of work, the training has allowed these women to make a living and support their families.
Barefoot College has trained more than 3,000 women from 96 countries since it was set up in 1972, according to Kamlesh Bisht, the technical manager of the institute.
The college offers rural women new skills with the aim of making them independent in an environment where jobs are scarce and health care generally inaccessible.
Santosh, who is illiterate, said she wants to “offer a good education and a better future” to her children, aged five to 20.
She now earns a small income by installing solar panels, and hopes to eventually make the equivalent of $170 a month.
The time away from her family was tough, but Santosh said it was worth it.
“At first, I was very scared,” she recalled. “But this training gave me confidence and courage.”
She showed with enthusiasm the three houses where she had installed a photovoltaic panel powering lamps, fans and chargers.
- Slow killer -
Her husband used to cut sandstone for pavers exported around the world.
But now he can barely walk, needs costly medication and relies on a meagre state allowance of $16 a month.
Wiping away tears with the edge of her bright red scarf, Santosh said she has had to borrow money from relatives, sell her jewelry and mortgage her precious mangalsutra, the traditional Hindu wedding necklace, to make ends meet.
The family share a similar fate with many others in Rajasthan state’s mining belt, where tens of thousands of people suffer from silicosis.
According to pulmonologist Lokesh Kumar Gupta, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 cases in just a single district, Ajmer.
In Santosh’s village of 400 households, 70 people have been diagnosed with silicosis, a condition that kills slowly and, in many cases, has no cure.
An estimated 2.5 million people work in mines across Rajasthan, extracting sandstone, marble or granite for less than $6 a day.
Those using jackhammers earn double but face even higher exposure to toxic dust.
Vinod Ram, whose wife has also graduated from the Barefoot College course, has been suffering from silicosis for six years and struggles to breathe.
“The medication only calms my cough for a few minutes,” said Vinod, 34, who now weighs just 45 kilos (99 pounds).
He started mining at age 15, working for years without a mask or any other protective gear.
- No choice but to work -
His wife Champa Devi, 30, did not even know how to write her name when she arrived at Barefoot College in June.
Now back home, at a village not far from Santosh’s, she is proud of her newfound expertise.
But her life remains overshadowed by illness and poverty.
Champa, who has dark circles under her eyes, has installed solar panels in four nearby homes but has not yet been paid.
For now, she earns about 300 rupees ($3.35) a day working at construction sites — hardly enough to cover her husband’s medical bills, which come up to some $80 a month.
The couple live in a single dark room with thin blankets covering the floor, and the near-contact sound of detonations from nearby mines.
“There is no treatment for silicosis,” said pulmonologist Gupta.
Early treatment can help, but most patients come only after five to seven years, he said.
Under state aid schemes, patients receive $2,310 upon diagnosis, and their families get another $3,465 in the case of death.
Ill miners, who are physically capable, sometimes continue to cut sandstone for a pittance to support their families, despite the dire health risks.
Sohan Lal, a 55-year-old mine worker who suffers from shortness of breath and severe cough, sees no other option but to keep working.
“If I were diagnosed, what difference would it make?” he said.
Her husband is bedridden with silicosis, a respiratory illness caused by inhaling fine silica dust which is common across some 33,000 mines in Rajasthan state, where the couple and their four children live.
Santosh, 36, has joined seven other women for a three-month course at Barefoot College in Tilonia, a two-hour drive from her village in the desert state’s Beawar district.
There, the group learned the basics of solar engineering — installing panels, wiring them, and assembling and repairing lamps — to help light up homes and provide electricity for anything from charging phones to powering fans.
With their sick husbands out of work, the training has allowed these women to make a living and support their families.
Barefoot College has trained more than 3,000 women from 96 countries since it was set up in 1972, according to Kamlesh Bisht, the technical manager of the institute.
The college offers rural women new skills with the aim of making them independent in an environment where jobs are scarce and health care generally inaccessible.
Santosh, who is illiterate, said she wants to “offer a good education and a better future” to her children, aged five to 20.
She now earns a small income by installing solar panels, and hopes to eventually make the equivalent of $170 a month.
The time away from her family was tough, but Santosh said it was worth it.
“At first, I was very scared,” she recalled. “But this training gave me confidence and courage.”
She showed with enthusiasm the three houses where she had installed a photovoltaic panel powering lamps, fans and chargers.
- Slow killer -
Her husband used to cut sandstone for pavers exported around the world.
But now he can barely walk, needs costly medication and relies on a meagre state allowance of $16 a month.
Wiping away tears with the edge of her bright red scarf, Santosh said she has had to borrow money from relatives, sell her jewelry and mortgage her precious mangalsutra, the traditional Hindu wedding necklace, to make ends meet.
The family share a similar fate with many others in Rajasthan state’s mining belt, where tens of thousands of people suffer from silicosis.
According to pulmonologist Lokesh Kumar Gupta, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 cases in just a single district, Ajmer.
In Santosh’s village of 400 households, 70 people have been diagnosed with silicosis, a condition that kills slowly and, in many cases, has no cure.
An estimated 2.5 million people work in mines across Rajasthan, extracting sandstone, marble or granite for less than $6 a day.
Those using jackhammers earn double but face even higher exposure to toxic dust.
Vinod Ram, whose wife has also graduated from the Barefoot College course, has been suffering from silicosis for six years and struggles to breathe.
“The medication only calms my cough for a few minutes,” said Vinod, 34, who now weighs just 45 kilos (99 pounds).
He started mining at age 15, working for years without a mask or any other protective gear.
- No choice but to work -
His wife Champa Devi, 30, did not even know how to write her name when she arrived at Barefoot College in June.
Now back home, at a village not far from Santosh’s, she is proud of her newfound expertise.
But her life remains overshadowed by illness and poverty.
Champa, who has dark circles under her eyes, has installed solar panels in four nearby homes but has not yet been paid.
For now, she earns about 300 rupees ($3.35) a day working at construction sites — hardly enough to cover her husband’s medical bills, which come up to some $80 a month.
The couple live in a single dark room with thin blankets covering the floor, and the near-contact sound of detonations from nearby mines.
“There is no treatment for silicosis,” said pulmonologist Gupta.
Early treatment can help, but most patients come only after five to seven years, he said.
Under state aid schemes, patients receive $2,310 upon diagnosis, and their families get another $3,465 in the case of death.
Ill miners, who are physically capable, sometimes continue to cut sandstone for a pittance to support their families, despite the dire health risks.
Sohan Lal, a 55-year-old mine worker who suffers from shortness of breath and severe cough, sees no other option but to keep working.
“If I were diagnosed, what difference would it make?” he said.
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