(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 3 - Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Wednesday that plans to use frozen Russian assets to help support Ukraine have been set back significantly by the position of the European Central Bank (ECB). The bank has reportedly refused to backstop a 140-billion-euros payment to Ukraine, thus undermining an EU plan to raise a 'reparations loan' backed by Russian assets frozen at Euroclear, the Belgian securities depository. "The European Central Bank's position was one of the issues that needed to be addressed, and if the ECB takes a stand against it, it certainly complicates the work on how to use the frozen assets and whether they can be used at all," Tajani said as he arrived at a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. "The issue is always that of the guarantees. "So let's see. We need to conduct an in-depth legal study to determine whether it can be done or not, and consider the stability of the eurozone too. "Politically, we are in favour; the problem is whether all this can be done legally, without creating shocks". (ANSA).