Visitor submit by Drieu Godefridi
Robbing Russia? Is von der Leyen silly or insane?
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever stubbornly refuses to go together with the most recent absurd thought from the EU forms: seizing Russia’s property in Belgium to supply them to Ukraine. Politico scolds him, claiming he’s “more durable to persuade than Trump” (the last word embodiment of evil, apparently).
Confiscating Russia’s sovereign property in Belgium would certainly be an act of sheer folly. Even throughout the Second World Conflict, no such step was taken. After Pearl Harbor, for instance, President Roosevelt froze Japanese property — he didn’t steal them. By no means in historical past have non-belligerent nations seized the central-bank property of a belligerent state throughout wartime in an effort to finance the reconstruction of a 3rd nation (source).
- A Direct Violation of Worldwide Regulation
The United Nations Conference on Jurisdictional Immunities of States (Article 21) guarantees the safety of central financial institution property when used for non-commercial functions. Article 5 is unequivocal: “A State enjoys, for itself and its property, immunity from the jurisdiction of the courts of one other State.”
The Articles on State Accountability for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) require that any “countermeasure” be proportionate, reversible, and geared toward resolving a dispute — not destroying an financial system.
Lastly, the goal has by no means really been the “reconstruction of Ukraine,” regardless of the protestations of the pale apparatchiks within the Berlaymont — headquarters of Ms. von der Leyen’s European Fee. The precise goal is to fund Ukraine’s warfare effort. In plain phrases: a de facto act of warfare by little Belgium towards imperial Russia. Even the authors most beneficial to confiscation acknowledge that such property might solely, beneath worldwide legislation, be used for reconstruction — by no means to finance warfare (Csongor István Nagy, Worldwide Funding Regulation Permits the Use of Frozen Russian Property to Compensate for Conflict Injury in Ukraine, Harvard Worldwide Regulation Journal, 15 November 2023).
- The Mom of All Monetary Crises
All worldwide monetary transactions depend on belief, since there is no such thing as a sovereign arbiter above states. Shattering that belief would unleash a monetary disaster that may devastate Europe and the worldwide monetary system. Europeans fail to know that between their present consolation and poverty lie merely two or three disastrous selections — exactly the kind the EU excels at making. Our fellow residents behave as if grocery store abundance have been a part of the legal guidelines of nature, an everlasting fixed. However while you’ve been dwelling on credit score for 50 years, warning is important. Europe is a leaking monetary submarine, and von der Leyen proposes that we throw the hatches extensive open — apparently to “breathe simpler.”
Each state on the planet would immediately perceive that the theft of Russian property paves the best way for the theft of their very own, beneath no matter pretext is perhaps discovered. One can image the delight of the Berlaymont’s creatures fantasising about seizing the property of China, India, the US, and others, within the identify of “inadequate local weather efforts,” as an example. 200 nations, 200 portfolios — a banquet for crazed bureaucrats.
The BRICS central banks would pull their reserves out of Western establishments inside per week. The euro would turn out to be poisonous as a reserve foreign money, and would collapse — for it isn’t backed by real industrial would possibly, however merely by the fading remnants of the rule of legislation.
Europe is already financially drained after its financial suicide, pompously named the “Inexperienced Deal.” Determined to maintain their crumbling system alive a number of months extra, the EU’s bureaucrats are able to seize something inside attain. However the remainder of the world is just not blind. It sees. It understands.
- Russia vs Belgium
And that is with out even contemplating that such a seizure can be handled by Russia as an act of warfare, triggering huge retaliatory measures and a cascade of lawsuits — lawsuits Moscow would virtually definitely win, as a result of the theft of sovereign property is, beneath worldwide legislation, against the law. Within the best-case state of affairs for Belgium, the nation can be ordered to return €150 billion to Russia instantly. However alas — the billions would have already been despatched to Ukraine, and already “spent”. Who would reimburse Moscow? And curiosity would hold mounting. Belgium would turn out to be a monetary vassal of Russia for a century.
In Conclusion
The teachings from this episode are clear:
- When the Belgian Prime Minister demanded “solidarity” from different European states on 23 October — that means that they need to additionally seize Russian property on their soil — nobody adopted. This proves that Belgium’s “companions” are totally conscious of the catastrophic penalties of such an act of warfare, and that the phrase “solidarity” has misplaced all that means. Buckling beneath extreme monetary and financial pressure, European states are sliding quickly towards a ruthless every-man-for-himself logic.
- The truth that a measure so deranged, reckless, and incoherent because the unlawful confiscation of Russian property might be pushed by from begin to end by Ms. von der Leyen and her workforce demonstrates that the EU is ruled by irresponsible and silly leaders.
This raises a burning query: ought to Ms. von der Leyen and her band of vandals stay on the helm of the European Union?
A query Mr. Bart De Wever — whose ECR group within the European Parliament helps the von der Leyen Fee — would do nicely to ponder.
Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (College Saint-Louis, College of Louvain), thinker (College Saint-Louis, College of Louvain) and PhD in authorized principle (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He’s an entrepreneur, CEO of a European non-public training group and director of PAN Medias Group. He’s the creator of The Green Reich (2020).
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