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From: JonH🍕
von der Leyen again.. Can the EU Survive Its Ukraine Strategy? November 24, 2025 Let’s talk about the EU’s increasingly desperate debate over Ukraine funding, and how it has pushed Brussels, and especially Ursula von der Leyen, into territory that even Europe’s own financial guardians are now warning is dangerous. What began as a conversation about supporting Kyiv has morphed into a pressure campaign on EU governments to accept a set of options that grow more politically toxic the closer we examine them. And as von der Leyen doubles down, insisting there are only three paths forward — pay directly, take on collective debt, or seize frozen Russian assets, what’s becoming clearer is not just the financial strain behind the scenes, but the sense of personal and institutional obsession driving her approach. When you look at the latest push inside the EU over Ukraine funding, you can almost feel the sense of panic radiating from Brussels. Ursula von der Leyen has sent a letter to every EU head of state spelling out three options, three, and only three, as she sees them. • First, she tells them to simply pay up: reach directly into national budgets and fund Ukraine’s government for the next two years. • Second, she urges a collective EU-wide loan: jointly guaranteed, so the bloc essentially goes into debt on Ukraine’s behalf. • And then there’s the third option, the one she clearly prefers: use the frozen Russian assets. It’s Viktor Orbán who made this letter public, which is why we even know the details. And what he pointed out is striking: she conveniently ignores a fourth option: that member states can refuse all three. They can say, “No, we’re not paying from our own budget, we’re not going into debt for this, and we’re not going to become the first major bloc in modern history to straight-up seize another sovereign’s frozen assets and pretend it’s sound policy.” But von der Leyen isn’t entertaining that. Her message is singular: Ukraine must be kept afloat for another two years at a cost somewhere between €130 and €150 billion. Otherwise, by February, Kyiv hits insolvency. There’s a €60-billion hole in its budget, and tax revenues are less than half of what the government spends. In short, without massive external financing, the lights go out. This is where the obsession begins to show. For Brussels, the idea of cutting Ukraine loose is simply not an option — not politically, not psychologically, not ideologically. And since EU states don’t want to give directly from their own budgets, and since they don’t want a shared EU-level debt, von der Leyen gravitates toward the frozen assets. It’s the only option she can still try to force through. But she has now run into the one player whose resistance actually matters: Euroclear. The CEO of Euroclear, Valérie Urbain, has been unusually blunt in public. She has basically said that von der Leyen’s scheme is illegal. Dressing the plan up as a “loan” backed by frozen Russian assets doesn’t change its nature it is, in practice, asset seizure. And Urbain has warned that if the EU goes down this path, Euroclear’s reputation collapses, the foundation of the European financial system shakes, and Belgium, where Euroclear is based, faces the immediate shock. She’s not exaggerating: Euroclear holds around €40 trillion in assets. If confidence erodes and money starts moving out, Europe’s financial core could be hit with a crisis on a scale nobody in Brussels seems willing to contemplate. The Belgian government knows it. They’ve already pushed back hard, refusing to take on liability for a financial institution of that size. Other major governments — France, Italy, others, are also signaling resistance. Even the ECB is said to oppose the plan. The guardians of Europe’s financial architecture are quietly but unmistakably warning that the Commission is about to cross a red line. Yet von der Leyen keeps pressing. And the obvious question emerges: why won’t she drop this, given the catastrophic risks? This is where interpretation becomes unavoidable. She has become personally invested in “Project Ukraine” to a degree that overrides normal statecraft. The sunk-cost dynamic is extreme the Commission is now so committed it can’t imagine stopping. von der Leyen appears convinced that if Ukraine falls, then the EU’s own project, its authority, its centralizing momentum, its self-image, collapses with it. Her centralizing instinct is part of the story. Over the past two years she’s expanded Commission authority into information control, fact-checking, security, intelligence coordination, and now increasingly defense. Plans for military mobility corridors inside the EU, the push for an EU-level defense commissioner, and the parallel push for a unified fiscal policy — EU taxation, Eurobonds, an EU finance ministry, all flow in the same direction. The Russian assets debate fits neatly into this long-term objective. If she can’t get the assets themselves, she can use the threat of seizure to argue that the “responsible” alternative is EU-wide debt issuance. In other words, Eurobonds through the back door. Brussels has wanted this since before von der Leyen, and she sees the crisis as her chance to cement it. Meanwhile, Washington is keeping its distance. U.S. officials have made clear they don’t want this to become a G7-level commitment, meaning the U.S. does not want to share liability. They’re happy for the EU to run ahead, but they’re not signing up. And that distance matters: it signals that Europe will take the hit alone if something breaks. Outside Europe, the warnings are sharp. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have told Euroclear directly: don’t do this. Asian investors have said the same. The real threat they’re making is simple: if you undermine financial norms, we move our money elsewhere. And you can bet that if they’re talking like that to Euroclear, they’re talking like that to Washington too. It’s not hard to imagine U.S. policymakers telling allies, “If you’re spooked by Brussels, shift your deposits to New York, we’ll take good care of them.” And Moscow has made its position clear as well. If the EU seizes Russian assets, Russia will seize European corporate assets still inside the country. That’s not rhetoric those assets still sit on European balance sheets. Shareholders are already anxious. Beyond that, Russia will take legal action in multiple jurisdictions, not just inside the EU. Euroclear itself admits that if challenged in court, it is almost certain to lose. That alone would be a disaster for the institution, with implications that would ripple across global finance. The irony is striking: the fact that Brussels keeps inventing elaborate “mechanisms” to justify using frozen Russian assets is itself a silent admission that the move is illegal. If it were lawful, they wouldn’t need to dress it up. And this is exactly what Valérie Urbain has now said out loud. So the situation now is a stalemate between political obsession and financial reality. On one side, von der Leyen, convinced that Ukraine’s survival is Europe’s survival, and determined to centralize more EU power through the crisis. On the other, the financial system warning that this path leads to meltdown. And hanging over everything is the fact that the Commission seems prepared to risk the latter in order to prevent the former. Share this: https://noctiluxanalysis.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/can-the-eu-survive-its-ukraine-strategy/ Posted in America, brussels, Europe, Europe Economy, France, Geopolitics & Power, Germany, Global Economy, Global Finance, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Ukraine War Leave a comment ←The AI Bubble: Why Nvidia’s Boom Could Trigger a Global Crash Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy Design a site like this with WordPress.com Get started Edited on 24/11/2025 at 22:04:03.

Current Thread	Author	Time
von der Leyen again.....[more]	JonH🍕	22:03:35
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