BRUSSELS. May 25 (Interfax) - Assets of the Russian Central Bank worth more than 200 billion euros are currently frozen in the countries of the European Union, European Commission Spokesperson Christian Wigand said.
"In the tenth sanctions package, a new requirement was introduced for operators and member states to report to the [European] Commission regarding the immobilized assets and reserves of the Central Bank of Russia. The deadline to do so was the May 12. Member-states have reported to the Commission over 200 billion euros of immobilized assets of the Russian Central Bank," Wigand told a briefing in Brussels on Thursday.
This amount is only for the EU, he said.
Responding to a question about plans to use the frozen Russian assets in the interests of Ukraine, the European Commission spokesperson said: "There is intense work going on this matter. We are determined to make Russia pay for the damage it is doing to Ukraine."
One of the options proposed to EU member states is using the assets of the Russian Central Bank for this purpose, he said.
"One of the avenues we are looking at [...] is to go for possible interest [on the capital] ...There are discussions ongoing in the specialized working group at the Council of Europe, we work very close on this with the Swedish presidency, and the last meeting took place yesterday [May 24]," Wigand said.