Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
Belgium is among the European countries with the largest amount of frozen Russian assets at €250 billion. This is largely due to the presence of the international securities giant Euroclear in Belgium. According to the Belgian news agency, quoting Le Soir newspaper.
"At this point we have frozen 191.9 billion euros in transactions and 58.7 billion euros in assets," said Alexandre de Geest of the Federal Public Service Finance.
More than 1,000 requests to lift the asset freeze have been submitted to the department responsible for enforcing the financial sanctions within the department, from people who believe the Russian sanctions do not apply to them.
The department only employs eight people and an application requires a lot of research, meaning only 300 applications have been processed so far.