This strange request, which leaves the dubitative analysts and raises legal issues, caused the price of the raw material.
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What does Vladimir Putin play around economic sanctions? Wednesday, March 23, the Russian president announced a curious decision, which, once again, raised the prices of energy, almost a month day for the day after the triggering of the war in Ukraine. “I decided to go to rubles for natural gas exports to the so-called” hostile countries “.” More dollar or euros, payments must now be performed in the Russian currency.
m. Putin gives a week to its federal central bank to organize this. The measure aims in particular the European Union, ultrapenditant to Russian deliveries, which account for about 40% of its gas consumption. After this statement, the price of gas in the Netherlands, the reference in Europe, jumped 34%, before completing the rising day of 9%. The Brent oil barrel rose by 5%, at $ 121 (110 euros), a historically high level.
Caught disapproved, governments, analysts and other gas buyers were lost in conjectures to explain this gesture. Contacted Wednesday at the end of the day, the French Ministry of the Economy indicated its potential impact. In Germany, the Minister of the Economy, Robert Habeck, felt that it was not to respect the delivery contracts, whose currency is specified in advance.
counter-sanction
The French Gas Company ENGIE raises the question of the legality of such a decision: “Our contracts provide for a payment of gas in euros, there are no clauses that allow the seller to change currency” , said on Franceinfo his president, Jean-Pierre Clamadieu. “We will try to understand what this position means which for the moment has not been notified to us by our counterpart, which is Gazprom.”
ENGIE’s supply contracts from Gazprom are spreading from 2006 to 2030. If they change the payment terms for gas, “the Russians could be gradually digging The grave of their long-term contracts “, estimates Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega, researcher at the French Institute of International Relations.
At this point, Mr. Putin’s announcement leaves the dubitative observers. Since the imposition of American and European sanctions, Russia is precisely lacking foreign currency, nearly half of its central bank reserves have been frozen, or about $ 300 billion. Moscow should therefore be delighted to receive currencies. So how to explain such a gesture? Mr. Putin advances a nationalist argument, saying that the euro, the dollar or the pound sterling are “compromised” currencies after the “illegitimate decisions” to freeze the reserves. It would be a counter-sanction.
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