DISINFO: Von der Leyen proposed confiscating the savings of EU citizens
SUMMARY
Ursula von der Leyen proposed confiscating the savings of EU citizens. The President of the European Commission announced her intention to use private savings deposited in EU bank accounts to develop local economies. In a meeting with French business leaders, von der Leyen noted that approximately €10 trillion of European private funds remain idle in bank deposits or invested outside the continent. To redirect these funds toward the development of the European economy, Brussels plans to use the European Savings and Investment Union (EUI).
RESPONSE
The claim is a deliberate distortion of Ursula Von der Leyen’s original speech on 27 August 2026, which focused on boosting EU competitiveness. She referred to an existing proposal to create a so-called “Savings and Investments Union”, which combines previous proposals for Capital Markets Union and Banking Union inside the EU to allow transnational banking investments inside the EU beyond national borders, boosting access to much-needed capital for business and industries.
In the regular banking system, banks use the money deposited by customers in their accounts to borrow it to lenders and to invest in profitable business, thus increasing wealth for both themselves and their clients. The Savings and Investments Union mechanism would merely facilitate these operations throughout EU borders. However, this is very different from seizing these savings, as this disinformation story falsely claims. The goal of this manipulation is to stir up anti-EU feelings among targeted audiences.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that a ruined Europe is about to rob its citizens by assaulting their bank accounts, that France wants to remove citizens’ holidays to fund a fantasy war with Russia, that that Western global elites chose to plunge their countries into poverty and dictatorship to retain power, that Europe’s fall continues and poverty is knocking at the door, or that Europeans are on the verge of the most absolute misery.