{"id":16809,"date":"2026-01-19T15:20:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/?p=16809"},"modified":"2026-04-21T19:23:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:23:02","slug":"1989-investment-treaty-complicates-eu-plans-to-use-russian-assets-for-ukraine-loan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/2026\/01\/19\/1989-investment-treaty-complicates-eu-plans-to-use-russian-assets-for-ukraine-loan\/","title":{"rendered":"1989 Investment Treaty Complicates EU Plans to Use Russian Assets for Ukraine Loan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the December 2025 summit of the Council of the <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips117'>EU<\/span>, concerns over potential investment arbitration claims under the <a href=\"https:\/\/investmentpolicy.unctad.org\/international-investment-agreements\/treaties\/bit\/3645\/belgium-luxembourg---russian-federation-bit-1989-\">1989 Belgium-Luxembourg-USSR <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips63'>BIT<\/span><\/a> were among the factors that contributed to the decision not to use immobilized Russian Central Bank assets held at Euroclear as collateral for a loan to Ukraine\u2014EU leaders ultimately opted for a \u20ac90 billion loan backed by common EU borrowing secured against the EU budget instead (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/articles\/deep-dive\/investment-treaties-times-of-war-russia-ukraine\"><span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips32'>IISD<\/span> analysis<\/a>). Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever had described the risk of Russian state entities or the Russian state using the Cold War-era treaty to challenge the use of the immobilized assets as a &#8220;Sword of Damocles&#8221; hanging over his government, leading Belgium to demand ironclad guarantees against legal and financial liabilities before agreeing to the original proposal. As part of the negotiations, Belgium reportedly demanded that EU member states terminate all existing bilateral investment treaties with Russia and refrain from concluding new ones\u2014a demand that found expression in the European Commission&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/commission.europa.eu\/document\/download\/ceae8dde-0291-4ee3-8519-80b30317bf35_en\">proposed Reparations Loan Regulation<\/a>, which calls on Member States to &#8220;withdraw from or terminate&#8221; their BITs with Russia and tasks the Commission with facilitating this coordination. <a href=\"https:\/\/eur-lex.europa.eu\/eli\/reg\/2025\/2600\/oj\">Council Regulation (EU) 2025\/2600<\/a>, which permanently immobilized Russian Central Bank assets under Article 122 <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips45'>TFEU<\/span>, also includes a safeguard clause explicitly barring the recognition or enforcement of any judicial, arbitral, or administrative decision obtained by the Russian Federation or entities acting on its behalf in connection with those measures.<\/p>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips7','United Nations Conference on Trade and Development'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips8','Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Comercio y Desarrollo'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips32','International Institute for Sustainable Development<!--more-->'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips33','Institut international du d\u00e9veloppement durable'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips34','Instituto Internacional para el Desarrollo Sostenible'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips45','Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips63','Bilateral investment treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips67','Energy Charter Treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips114','Sistema de Tribunales de Inversiones'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips116','European Commission'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips117','European Union'); <\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the December 2025 summit of the Council of the <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips117'>EU<\/span>, concerns over potential investment arbitration claims under the 1989 Belgium-Luxembourg-USSR <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips63'>BIT<\/span> were among the factors that contributed to the decision not to use immobilized Russian Central Bank assets held at Euroclear as collateral for a loan to Ukraine\u2014EU leaders ultimately opted for a \u20ac90 billion loan backed by common EU borrowing secured against the EU budget instead.<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips63','Bilateral investment treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips116','European Commission'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips117','European Union'); <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":16990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[397],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17335,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16809\/revisions\/17335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}