Should the EU use Russian assets to finance the Ukraine use, this could have consequences for German companies. This was said by the Chairman of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce Abroad, Matthias Schepp. Germany has invested in Russia like no other country, which is why it has “the most to lose” from using Russian assets.
Over 100 billion euros are at risk, said Schepp. For example, it is money Russia For his part, he has frozen accounts, or companies and store chains that have been placed under external management by Russia.
German capital is stuck in blocked accounts
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The companies Uniper and BASF have already lost Russian subsidiaries to external management. At the beginning of 2023, Russia took control of the Russian subsidiary of Wintershall, itself a subsidiary of BASF. In April 2023, Russia placed the Uniper subsidiary Unipro under state administration. At that time, Uniper wrote in a statement that “it has effectively no longer been able to exercise operational control over Unipro since the end of 2022.”
On the Russian side, the foreign administrations were classified as a reaction to a similar approach in Germany. In September 2022, the Federal Government Companies and refineries of the Russian oil company Rosneft under trust management. In September of this year, the federal government extended this administration until March 2026. Since the three refineries owned by Rosneft account for a total of 12 percent of the oil processing capacity in Germany, they were placed under trusteeship to maintain security of supply, the federal government announced again in September.
German companies that wanted to sell their factories after the Russian invasion of Ukraine had to deposit the money into blocked accounts. However, there is only very limited access to this, for example to pay taxes, said Schepp. Officially, this capital still belongs to German companies. “It is not in the interests of Germany and its taxpayers that these funds end up in the Kremlin’s coffers,” said Schepp.
