French President Emmanuel Macron “betrayed” Friedrich Merz by not supporting the German chancellor’s attempt to use frozen Russian EU assets to finance Ukraine, the Financial Times writes.
Earlier this week, EU leaders failed to agree on the European Commission's controversial proposal to use frozen Russian central bank funds to finance Kiev's military and economy.
The FT, citing an anonymous senior EU diplomat, reported that “Macron betrayed Merz and he knows there will be a price to pay for it.”
According to the article, while the French president did not publicly oppose the proposal of the so-called "reparation loan", Macron privately questioned its legality.
Furthermore, his team reportedly showed that France, burdened with mounting debts, would be unlikely to issue guarantees in the event that seized assets had to be returned to Russia.
The FT claimed that Macron joined Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in opposing the plan, thus “killing the idea”.
Instead, EU leaders approved an interest-free loan of 90 billion euros for Ukraine, backed by the bloc's budget.