Romania: Speech by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell in the EP Plenary on the return of national treasure illegally appropriated by Russia

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Thank you very much, once again, dear President,

On this topic, I will be speaking on behalf of the High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell, that is at the moment in the United Nations.

So, Honourable Members of the European Parliament,

You have invited the [European] Commission to speak on the return of the national treasure of Romania. Romania's national treasure was transferred to the tsarist Russian Empire during the First World War in order to be protected, but never returned in its entirety to Romania, neither by the USSR nor by the Russian Federation.

This remained a recurrent topic on the agenda of Romanian-Soviet and then Romanian-Russian bilateral discussions.

The treasure includes the National bank of Romania's gold reserves, Queen Marie's jewels, archives and other historical and cultural valuables, and exposes yet another violation of international law by Russia.

While the topic continues to be a bilateral issue between Romania and Russia, the European Union stands ready to support the Romanian authorities' efforts to obtain the full restitution of its national treasure, if they so request.

This will be a long-term endeavour, as currently there is no sufficient level of trust between the European Union and Russia to suggest that we could get any meaningful outcome from Russia.

As a consequence of the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Russia's illegal, unprovoked and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine since 2022, the policy dialogues and the mechanism of cooperation between the European Union and Russia have been suspended.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine marked a fundamental turning point in the relations between the European Union and Russia.

As long as Russia's illegal war against Ukraine continues, we will continue calling it out for war crimes and for blatant violations of international humanitarian law. We will maintain our political, military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine and will continue applying restrictive measures against Russia, which already include the largest sanctions packages in our Union's history. At the same time, we continue supporting Russian civil society, human rights defenders and independent media who speak out against the regime.

Thank you very much.

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-254248

Closing remarks

President, thank you very much. Honourable Members,

The debate today illustrates how Russia follows a consistent pattern of violations of international law.

Russia's war against Ukraine is a blatant violation of international law including the United Nations Charter, goes against the European Union's objective to strengthen the multilateral rules-based order and is a threat to all countries, not just to Europe.

Russia's political leadership must be held fully accountable for the violations of international law and international humanitarian law it has committed.

As long as Russia continues to wage a war of aggression against Ukraine, there can be no return to normal relations.

I'm trying to address in particular the comments made by Honourable Traian Băsescu and Honourable Maria Grapini, that in the meantime left.

I would like to underline a sentence in which it was said [that] while the topic of Romanian treasure continues to be a bilateral issue between Romania and Russia, the European Union stands ready to support Romanian authorities' efforts to obtain the full restitution of its national treasure if they so request.

So, in a nutshell, the basic messages are: the European Union remains open to support Romania on the matter of restitution of its national treasure and archives by Russia but, at this moment, policy dialogues and mechanisms for cooperation with Russia are suspended, following the war of aggression against Ukraine. But we are ready to take up the issue of restitution of Romanian national treasures in the future, when the situation allows.

So, in a very open and frank way, this is the message that [the] Commission can at this moment, unfortunately, give to the Parliament, thanking again to the Parliament for this debate and this initiative.

Thank you very much.

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-254563

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