EU offers to release funds from frozen Russian banks to help food trade

The European Commission has offered member states to release “certain funds” from Russian banks frozen by EU sanctions to help the resumption of trade in agricultural and food products, including wheat and fertilizers, according to a document consulted this Tuesday by AFP.

Member states “want to make it perfectly clear that nothing in the sanctions hinders grain transport out of Russia or Ukraine,” an EU diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

The Europeans are under pressure from their African partners who imported more than half of their wheat from the Ukraine or Russia before the conflict sparked by the Kremlin. “The competent authorities of a Member State may authorize the release of certain immobilized funds or economic resources belonging to banks (…) after having established that these funds or economic resources are necessary for the purchase, import or transport of agricultural goods and food products, including wheat and fertilizers”, specifies the proposal presented to the Member States.

Major Russian Banks Excluded From Swift

This exception affects seven Russian banks: Bank Rossiya, Promsvyaebank, VEB-RF (or Vnesheconombank; VEB), Otkritie FC Bank (formerly known as NOMOS Bank), Novikombank, Sovcombank (formerly known as Buycombank), and VTB Bank. The provision has been presented to the ambassadors of the EU states in Brussels and, if accepted, a written procedure will be organized on Wednesday for it to be validated by the capitals in order to publish the measure in the Official Journal of the EU. Thursday. explained a diplomat.

The Senegalese head of state and current president of the African Union, Macky Sall, expressed his alarm at the consequences of European sanctions on grain trade, in particular the exclusion of the main Russian banks from the international financial system. messaging for money transfers.

Moscow is accused by the EU of blocking Ukrainian grain exports and of having raised the price of Russian grain sales through a 30% export tax, causing shortages and driving up prices, explained the head of European diplomacy, Joseph Borrell.