The Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) of the EU countries will establish an ad hoc working party on the use of assets frozen in the EU for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

A new item appeared in the published draft agenda for the February 15 Coreper meeting: "Ad hoc Working Party on the use of frozen and immobilised assets to support Ukraine's reconstruction: establishment and mandate. Approval."

As follows from the agenda, this approval will take place without discussion.

At the same time, the document does not specify the ownership of the assets in question. Nevertheless, recently the heads of EU institutions have repeatedly made statements that they are talking about Russian assets frozen in the European Union. At the same time, on the eve of an extraordinary EU summit on February 9, a high-ranking European official told reporters that EU leaders, as part of the discussion of assistance to Ukraine, planned to move forward on the use of frozen Russian assets. But this, he explained, is not about their confiscation.

This is a sanctions regime, not a confiscation regime. The sanctions regime means that you can use the money, but you have to pay it back when the policy changes, the EU official said.

He said that these funds, in an amount estimated at about EUR 300 billion, are distributed in various financial structures.

Answering a question, he confirmed that this money cannot be spent irretrievably. What can be done is to use them: profit from EUR 300 billion and use these funds for recovery. That is the theory. But it must be done concretely. First one needs to identify these funds, access them, determine the mechanism (for their use), the representative of the EU said.