After initial reluctance, Hungary, Italy and France are now also in favor of excluding Russia from the Swift banking system. According to Ukrainian President Zelensky. You have “almost the full support of the EU countries”.
After the EU disagreed on Friday about excluding Russia from the Swift banking communications network, there were increasing calls for such an approach on Saturday. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is now one of the supporters. The same applies to France, as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday.
In a telephone conversation with him, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke out in favor of excluding Russia from the Swift global payment system. “We already have almost the full support of EU countries for Russia’s detachment from Swift. I hope that Germany and Hungary will have the courage to support this decision. We have the courage to defend our homeland and Europe,” he said Zelensky in a video message on Saturday.
According to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary will also support all sanctions imposed by the European Union against Russia. What the EU can agree on, Hungary accepts and supports, he says during a visit to the Ukrainian-Hungarian border. “This is the time to be united, it is a war,” Orbán said on Saturday. Peace efforts are the most important thing.
Sanctions have not been consistent enough so far
With the statement that “mere words” would no longer be enough, Czech President Milos Zeman also advocated a Swift exit. He said this on Friday at an online conference with the heads of state of Eastern European NATO countries. The 77-year-old criticized the sanctions already imposed by Western countries because of the Russian attack on Ukraine as not being consistent enough. Zeman’s demand is particularly significant because he was considered a critic of tough EU sanctions against Russia until the Russian attack on Ukraine. He was therefore often criticized for being too pro-Russian.
The Baltic states have been pushing for decoupling from the start, but Austria, Germany, France and Italy have initially reacted cautiously. The Ukrainian President has now reported that Draghi had told him in a telephone call on Saturday that he supported Russia’s decoupling, as he said on Twitter. Draghi’s support for this is confirmed in the ranks of the governing coalition in Rome. According to Zelensky, there is now almost full support from the EU countries.
“A question of time”
ECB sources say a decision to exclude Russia from Swift could be made within days. “Swift is just a matter of time, a very short time, days,” the head of a central bank in the euro zone, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
The German government had recently expressed reluctance to exclude Russia from Swift. According to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, this would trigger “massive collateral damage”. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has now encountered resistance within his own party with his no to an exclusion. Juso chairwoman Jessica Rosenthal called on Saturday to clear the way for this particularly harsh sanction. “We can really hurt the Russian government with that. We should comply with the demands of our Eastern European partner countries.” The Young Socialists make up 49 of the 206 SPD members of the Bundestag, i.e. about a quarter. The director of the institute of German business, which is close to employers, Michael Hüther, is convinced of the instrument: “If you stop Swift, everything collapses – you could see that in Iran. But there might not be any other way to stop Putin,” said Hüther of the Funke media group.
According to reports, Austria was still one of the brakemen on this issue on Friday. However, at a meeting on Friday, the National Security Council agreed that Austria should work internationally to exclude Russia from Swift.
“Relenting, tough sanctions against Russia”
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda want to discuss the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia with Scholz later in Berlin. This was announced by the Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller on Twitter. The meeting took place on Morawiecki’s initiative. “The European Union must immediately adopt a package of relentless, tough sanctions against Russia,” said the Polish government spokesman. He did not name the time of the meeting.
According to experts, Russia’s exclusion from the international banking communications network Swift need not lead to complete financial isolation in the medium to long term. In theory, at least, Russia has two Swift alternatives available in the field of digital currencies, said Philipp Sandner, economist at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, the German Press Agency.
On the one hand, Russia could switch to classic cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, President Vladimir Putin could try to dock his country to the new Chinese digital currency e-Yuan (eCNY). “In the short term, the alternative options in the direction of crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum as well as e-Yuan are still more of a theoretical nature,” explained Sandner, who is considered one of the leading experts on digital currencies in Germany. In the medium term, however, this could look very different. “A lot can be done in a period of six to twelve months. But you won’t be able to do it in a few days.”
(APA/dpa/Reuters)