The ministers of the main economies of the European Union, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC) highlighted on Monday “the enormous impact” of the freezing of the assets of the Russian Central Bank decreed yesterday.
“The ministers have unanimously underlined the massive, systemic and immediate impact of the measure adopted yesterday (Sunday) to freeze the assets of the Russian Central Bank, impacts that have been seen in interest rates, the devaluation of the ruble and the stock markets,” sources from the French Executive indicated after a meeting by videoconference.
The ministers of the most thriving economies of the European bloc, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, the president of the ECB (Christine Lagarde) and the economic leaders of the EC (Valdis Dombrovskis and Palo Gentiloni) evaluated what the Russian banks that will be left without access to the Swift financial transaction system.
“The EC will take today’s talks into account to make a firm proposal in the next few hours,” French government sources said.
According to the heads of Economy and Finance, “the implementation of this sanction must be as fast as possible”, taking into account the operational situation of European financial institutions.
Likewise, the meeting, held under the French presidency of the EU, served to assess the consequences that the resurgence of sanctions on Russia will have in European companies.
The French Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, convened an extraordinary Council of Ministers of Economy and Finance of the EU for this Wednesday to continue the discussions.
