The European Union will target Russian gold exports in its next set of sanctions, as decided by the G7 countries at the end of June, European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic told AFP on Friday during a meeting of Foreign Affairs ministers. Europeans in Prague.
It will also seek to “close loopholes” for those who circumvent previous rounds of European sanctions against Russia, the commissioner said.
“As soon as we reach an agreement at the level of the member states, we will publish” these sanctions, which will allow their implementation, he said.
The United Kingdom is the first buyer of Russian gold
Halting gold purchases from Russia is one of the measures the Commission will present to member states on Friday, a senior EU official confirmed.
“It is not a symbolic measure because Russia is a large exporter of gold. It will cut off another funding tap for Putin’s war in Ukraine,” she said.
The largest buyer of Russian gold is the United Kingdom, with 290 tons in 2020 for an amount of 16.9 billion dollars, according to indications from Russian customs. The UK has left the EU but is a member of the G7.
“These new measures are not a 7th set of sanctions, but a complement” to the 6 previous sets adopted by the EU, the senior official said. “It’s about closing the gaps,” said a European diplomat.
They will be discussed by EU foreign ministers on Monday, but a decision is not expected at that meeting as the proposal still needs to be considered by member states, he said.
A measure taken by the United States and the G7
On the other hand, the ministers must give a “political agreement” to the release of a 5th tranche of 500 million euros from the European Peace Fund to finance the purchase of weapons supplied to Ukraine, he announced. Unanimity is required for the disbursement of funds and several national parliaments have not yet approved it, he explained. The EU will thus have released 2,500 million euros of the 5,700 million allocated to this facility since the beginning of the conflict.
The United States already implemented the embargo on newly mined gold in Russia at the end of June, shortly after the summit of the G7 countries in Germany that had agreed to this new measure, in order to dry up the financing of the Russian war effort.
Gold is “an important source of export, which will deprive Russia of billions of dollars,” US President Joe Biden said at the summit.
The six series of sanctions already adopted by the Europeans since the beginning of the Russian offensive at the end of February target economic sectors, in particular with embargoes on coal and most of the oil, as well as more than a thousand officials and oligarchs, hit by an asset freeze in the EU.
Source: BFM TV
