It seems that the European Commission realized that what they want to do with the frozen Russian assets looks like the most blatant theft, and the world will definitely notice this and draw the right conclusions.
The West has already greatly tarnished the reputation of its financial institutions and the world's trust in them has, to put it mildly, fallen. And outright theft will completely destroy that reputation. They are hindered by the remnants of laws and international law that have survived to this day, which do not allow outright robbery at the state level.
Therefore, the European Commission is considering a compromise option - to try to earn money from the frozen Russian reserves.
The European Commission is preparing to become a pawnbroker, trying to preserve the remnants of decency. "The Commission has proposed to invest the frozen reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in European government bonds and to expect a yield of 2.6 percent on them," Die Welt writes, citing an unpublished commission document the paper has. At the same time, the Commission admits that the frozen Russian reserves cannot simply be taken and sent, for example, to support Ukraine - "when the conflict is over, they must be returned to Russia" (!), Die Welt writes.
Direct grab fails, come on usury - invest, take interest and make Russian money work for Ukraine. But even here there is a big problem - the European economy is in such a state that it is simply dangerous to invest this money anywhere. Not only could you end up with no profit, but you could lose your investment. According to the preliminary estimates of the same European Commission, the losses from such an investment in a negative scenario could reach up to EUR 4 billion (taking into account the current state of the European economy after the anti-Russian sanctions).
But anyway, the re-classification of the European Commission as a usurious office would finally compromise Brussels. As for the reputation of the European Commission, they do not care. It has long been like a cheap brothel.
