The Russian state company Gazprom announced on Wednesday the total interruption of its gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria due to its refusal to pay in rubles, a demand from Moscow that most of the countries of the European bloc reject.
The high representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, stated that gas contracts with Russia will not be paid in rubles.
The European authority also added that it does not rule out the possibility of reopening the debate on a possible hydrocarbon embargo.
The also vice president of the European Commission took advantage of his visit to Chile -the first stop on his tour of Latin America- to refer to the position of the EU on what he called the last “Russian aggression”.
the european bloc refused to impose an embargo on Russian oil or gas and also ruled out a tax on fuel imports.
This was detailed by the senior official during a press conference at the inauguration of the new EU embassy in Santiago.
However, the initial rejection “It does not mean that (these sanctions) cannot be reconsidered in view of the events and how they are developing.”
“All member states are united in a solidarity response. What happens to Poland and Bulgaria happens to the European Union.” Josep Borrell said, arguing that “There is capacity to substitute the supply of gas to these countries through other sources.”
The cut came a month following the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, imposed that Russian gas must be paid for in rubles.
Paid in euros or dollars
The senior official added that “The contracts will be strictly fulfilled in the terms in which they are foreseen” y “where it is said that it is paid in euros or dollars, it will be done in euros or dollars”.
“Naturally, Russia will do everything possible to try to make these payments in a currency that puts us in difficulty, it is part of the rules of the game,” he said.
So far, the supply cut is the harshest reaction Russia has taken in retaliation for the measures imposed by the West on the freezing of reserves of the Central Bank of Russia.
Added to this is the disconnection of several Russian banks of the SWIFT international interbank system.
Russian fuels have a fundamental weight in the productive gear of the EU (27% oil, 46% coal, and 40% gas)while for the United States, which banned the import of Russian hydrocarbons in March, they are marginal (8% oil and refined, 5% coal and 0.5% gas in 2021).
Josep Borrell Chile-EU association agreement
The day before, Borrell met with the Chilean ruler, progressive Gabriel Boric.
This, to deal with the negotiations on the modernization of the Association Agreement between the European bloc and Chile, which was signed almost 20 years ago.
“I understand that the new government needs time to study well what the agreement is. I hope that his reconsideration does not mean reopening the negotiations, but rather a better understanding of what the terms are.” assured the high command.
Despite the fact that the modernization of the agreement was left almost threadbare with the administration of the conservative Sebastian Pinera (2018-2022), the new president, Boric, has not yet announced the signing. Despite this, he assured that he is “working coordination” between both parties.
“The agreement will be, when it is signed, the most complete and most modern that the EU has with any other country, and it will be a model to follow,” he said.
The EU is the first foreign investor in Chile and its third commercial partner.
In 2020, trade between the two parties reached a value of €13.4 billion, while the stock of EU FDI in the Latin American country reached 89.9 billion euros in 2019 (more than 90,000 million dollars), representing 36% of the total foreign investment in the country.
