All European Union Member States have agreed that they will not pay Russia in roubles for their Russian gas imports in the manner required by the decree signed by Vladimir Putin, two senior EU officials said on Thursday 28 April.
“What we do know, and there is consensus on this from all Member States, is that none is willing to pay (in roubles)”, they said.
As some Member States sought clarification on which payment practices would or would not constitute a violation of EU sanctions against Russia, senior officials explained that paying in roubles is not in itself a circumvention of sanctions, clarifying what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had said the previous day (see EUROPE 12940/1).
To comply with the method required in the Russian decree, i.e. paying in euros or dollars into a first account at Gazprombank and then opening a second account into which payments would be converted into roubles, would be a violation.
“What we cannot accept is that companies are obliged to open a second account and that between the first and second account, the amount in euros is in the full hands of the Russian authorities and the Russian Central Bank, and that the payment is only complete when it is converted into roubles”, stressed one of the two senior officials, likening this practice to a loan to the Russian Central Bank.
The problem with this method is that a payment in a certain currency will be considered to have been made “only once that foreign currency amount has been converted into roubles by someone else within a timeframe and at an exchange rate that they (the European companies importing Russian gas) have no control over”, said the European Commission’s chief spokesperson, Eric Mamer.
He also insisted that paying directly in roubles would in any case represent a breach of contract in the majority of cases, since around 97% of contracts between European companies and Gazprom stipulate that payments must be made in either euros or dollars.
Confusion among Member States
As far as the Member States are concerned, the guidance provided by the European Commission is likely to have been subject to different interpretations, leading to some confusion.
Poland’s Minister of Climate and Environment, Anna Moskwa, for example, called for sanctions against Austria, Germany and Hungary, which she said were paying in roubles for their gas, during an appearance on Polish TV channel Polsat News.
For his part, the German Minister for the Economy and Climate, Robert Habeck, said he was following “the path that Europe has shown us” by making the payments in euros, which will then be “transferred by Gazprombank to a so-called ‘K’ account”, according to information from Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This issue is expected to be discussed by the Member States’ energy ministers at an extraordinary meeting on Monday 2 May. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)