European Union reaches political agreement to block Russian Central Bank transactions after Ukraine invasion

The foreign ministers of the countries of the European Union (EU) reached a political agreement on Sunday to block financial transactions with the Russian Central Bank, announced the head of European diplomacy, Joseph Borrell.

With that measuremore than half of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank will be paralyzed, since they are kept in establishments in G7 countries″, said Borrell, who reinforced that the measure should be implemented before the opening of the markets on Monday.

The EU’s Foreign Affairs Council has also banned Russia’s major international television channels, the publicly funded Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik TV, and their affiliates from broadcasting. At the same time, the airspace of the 27 EU countries has been closed to Russian airlines, a measure that had already been adopted by almost all member states.

It has also been agreed to punish the Belarusian regime of Alexander Lukashenko for its collaboration in the aggression against Ukraine and to expand the list of more than twenty oligarchs, politicians, soldiers and journalists close to Vladimir Putin whose assets are frozen in the EU and are prohibited from entering EU territory.

The measures have been announced by the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyenand the High Representative for EU Foreign Policy, Joseph Borrellhalf an hour before the start of the Council meeting, made up of the 27 Foreign Ministers.

This new package arrives just a few hours after the same Von der Leyen communicate two very harsh financial sanctions: the disconnection of several Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system and the freezing of the assets of the Russian central bank in the countries involved in this punishment (the EU, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom).