Belgium (Brussels Morning newspaper), The Ukraine Recovery Conference (21-22 June) in London has heard renewed pledges of support for the war-torn country.
Among those taking part was Romanian MEP Vlad Gheorghen, a member of the Renew Europe group. He was the only one from Renew Europe invited to the event.
He was invited for his work on Ukraine, asset confiscation, sanctions evasion, his repeated calls for the establishment of the Rebuild Ukraine Fund, as well as his support for Ukrainian refugees.
He says he has been giving such support since the start of the war “by creating the biggest group of volunteers helping Ukrainians.”
The London conference is a high-level event that follows-up on the last year’s Lugano conference.
The MEP told this site that he believes Russian assets “should be mobilized to the maximum to reconstruct Ukraine and compensate the victims. Even the rebuilding of the Kakhovka hydropower plant should be done with Russian money.”
Speaking exclusively to this site, he said, “Everybody would agree with the principle that the criminals should pay for their crimes. This totally applies to Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Russia must pay and will pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction. They will pay for Kakhovka Dam, Mariupol theatre, destroyed hospitals and schools and private houses.”
He added, “Obviously, the EU and other international partners will help Ukraine financially as long as it takes to make it strong.
“At the same time, we should use Russian assets which are frozen in the EU as quickly as possible to channel them to Ukraine. I work on it in the European Parliament and I am happy that all these ideas are now also voiced here at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London. When I proposed the idea of Russian assets confiscation for the rebuilding of Ukraine in March 2022, just after the start of the war, it came as a surprise to many policy-makers. Now, we see that for example in the USA it has become a reality and they are ready to channel the money of Russian criminal origin to Ukraine. This should become a reality also across the whole EU, and I think we are close to it.”
The MEP went on, “As a member of the EP committee for Budgets I made every effort to include such compensation mechanisms in the Directive on asset recovery and confiscation, as well as the Directive on the penalties for the sanction evasion.
“We have seen the EU acting incredibly quickly on some urgent priorities. The war in Ukraine and the urgent needs to reconstruct at least the basic healthcare facilities represent a big urgency. We live in unprecedented times, and it’s no wonder that we need unprecedented instruments to tackle the challenges.”
He said, “Every failure to efficiently help Ukraine will be used by Vladimir Putin to weaken both Ukraine and the EU. This Ukraine Recovery Conference is another opportunity for me to call for an EU Rebuild Ukraine Facility which would include donor contributions, investment funds and obviously confiscated Russian assets to start the reconstruction of Ukraine where it is most needed today.”
