European Commission considers lifting sanctions for Russia’s Rosselkhozbank

The European Union took note of Russia’s position on the importance of Rosselkhozbank in the export of agricultural products and will consider the possibility of lifting the sanctions, a European Commission spokesman Peter Stano has told Izvestiya.

“We have duly taken note of Russia’s claims regarding the role of Rosselkhozbank in transactions related to food and agriculture, as well as the perceived difficulties caused by its disconnection from SWIFT,” Stano told Izvestiya. 

He noted that payments are still possible, but transactions have become more expensive and slower, and added that “a sufficient number of payment channels remain open” as most Russian banks are not disconnected from SWIFT, including Gazprombank which has become the main operator for all deals within the oil and gas sector.

“The EU allows waiving sanctions in order to enable EU’s operators to deal with sanctioned Russian banks to trade provision and fertilisers,” Stano noted. He also added that any amendments to the EU sanctions would require a unanimous vote from all EU member states.

The EU introduced sanctions and disconnected Rosselkhozbank from the SWIFT system in early June as part of the sixth sanctions package. In mid-November, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin confirmed media reports that the Russian Federation was discussing the possibility of excluding Rosselkhozbank, Russia’s main operator for agriculture deals, from the sanctioned list.

The Financial TImes reported on 15 November that the US and EU had no plans to reconnect Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT, but instead were ready to help it set up correspondent banking relationships with US banks.