The European Union “wants to cut all ties between Russia and the global financial system,” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The European Union “wants to cut all ties between Russia and the global financial system,” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Bruno Le Maire, speaking to the press shortly before the start of a meeting of finance ministers in Paris, stressed that the French economy was “little exposed to Russia”.
“We want to financially isolate Russia (…) We want to dry up the financing” of the Russian economy, he assured. “Our objective is to bend the Russian economy, this will take the necessary time,” said Bruno Le Maire again the day after the announcement of European sanctions.
“Transport, aeronautics, semiconductors”
Paris will also participate to the tune of 300 million euros in the granting of EU aid of 1.2 billion euros to Kiev, decided on Monday in Brussels. Among the sanctions imposed on Moscow, the EU will drastically limit Russia’s access to European capital markets, hampering and increasing the cost of financing its debt.
It will also reduce its access to “crucial technologies”, by depriving it of electronic components and software, so as to “severely penalize” its economy, explained Thursday the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
These sanctions will affect “transport, the aeronautics sector, semiconductors, all sensitive technologies of the Russian economy”, said Friday the French Minister of Economy.
Nothing decided for SWIFT
Regarding the sanctions targeting Russian personalities, the Directorate General of Public Finances (DGFiP) will be responsible for identifying the assets in France of the persons targeted, he explained.
Neobanks: the cheapest offers to control your budget
However, no action has been decided on the SWIFT international banking exchange system due in particular to German reluctance. “It’s the very last option,” said Bruno Le Maire. “Additional steps are still possible, but we must be wary of their effects: it is the Russian economy that must be subjected to the consequences”, underlined German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, present at the alongside his French counterpart.
Germany is particularly dependent on Russia in the gas sector, and an exclusion from Moscow’s SWIFT system could have serious implications for Berlin’s supplies. Faced with the consequences of these sanctions on “some French companies”, Bruno Le Maire recalled that “Russia is a secondary economic partner of France”.
The minister consulted several federations of French companies on Thursday, including the automotive, nuclear and aeronautical sectors. Some companies fear having to suffer the consequences of this rise in tension, like Safran with titanium, a material used in aircraft landing gear or in the fuselage. More generally, companies fear a potential surge in the prices of raw materials, including aluminum, steel, oil and gas.
Reproduction forbidden.