Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the continued inclusion of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, and its third-largest bank, Gazprombank, in the SWIFT interbank messaging system “unacceptable” on Thursday, 3 March—the day after the West decided to exclude seven Russian banks in response to the invasion of Ukraine (see EUROPE 12902/1).
The continued inclusion of Sberbank and Gazprombank in the SWIFT system is mainly due to requests from countries like Germany and Italy to go through with payments for their Russian gas deliveries.
“We must strive [for] all Russian banks [to be] disconnected from SWIFT; we must dare to refuse energy imports from Russia to Europe”, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis went on to say.
While in Romania, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen indicated that the European Union is reserving the right to bolster the sanctions that are already in place in accordance with how the situation on the ground develops.
The Europeans are in the process of examining the possibility of excluding certain Belarusian banks from the SWIFT system, according to Reuters. This measure would help combat the circumvention of the economic and financial sanctions that have been imposed on Russia. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)