While Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has always supported sanctions against Russia, the government coalition she leads is divided over supporting Ukraine.
Hard-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has embraced a Russia-friendly stance and endorsed U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine.
Emergency rule
Offering a further criticism, the four countries expressed skepticism toward the Commission seizing on emergency powers to overhaul the current sanctions rules and keep Russia’s assets frozen in the long-term.
Despite voting in favor of this move to preserve EU unity, they said they were wary of then progressing to use the Russian assets themselves.
“This vote does not pre-empt in any circumstances the decision on the possible use of Russian immobilised assets that needs to be taken at Leaders’ level,” the four countries wrote.
The legal mechanism for long-term freeze is meant to reduce the chance that pro-Kremlin countries in Europe, such as Hungary and Slovakia, will hand back the frozen funds to Russia.
Officials claim this workaround undermines the Kremlin’s chances of liberating its assets as part of a post-war peace settlement — and therefore strengthens the EU’s separate plan to make use of that money.
However, the four countries wrote that the legal clause “implies very far reaching legal, financial, procedural, and institutional consequences that might go well beyond this specific case.”