“Urgent meeting” and new EC guidelines on gas payments in rubles. Some countries are indignant

According to Putin’s decree, Russian buyers should open accounts with Gazprombank and pay for gas in rubles. Poland and Bulgaria, which refused to comply with this demand, were cut off by Russia from supplies of blue fuel.

it turns a blind eye and shows the member states how to yield to Russia’s demands while avoiding sanctions, said one of the EU diplomats to Beata Płomecka. The Commission presented its guidelines at an urgent meeting on Friday evening at expert level. They are dubiously legal – commentators of the journalists comment. According to their reports, not once during the meeting did the Commission openly say that it did not agree to the payment in rubles, which would be a breach of the sanctions.

The Commission emphasizes that opening an account with Gazprombank in euros or dollars is not a breach of sanctions if companies pay for gas in currencies specified in contracts and that such payments definitely release them from further obligations. And it is enough, according to Brussels, for companies to declare that they fulfill their contracts, considering the payment made in euros or dollars.

However, several EU diplomats said that some experts expressed surprise and some indignation at the Commission’s proposal. Questions arose – how to treat the conversion from euro accounts to ruble accounts. The Commission replied that transactions between accounts by Gazprombank were neither a circumvention nor a breach of sanctions.

Payment for gas in rubles. Urgent meeting by surprise on Friday evening. “This is ridiculous”

This is ridiculous – commented one of the diplomats. It smells of lobbying concerns and corruption – commented another interlocutor of the Brussels correspondent of Polish Radio. His opinion is shared by one of the officials who believes that France, among others, which might be understandable as the presidency, but also Germany, Hungary, and it is not excluded that Italy, seemed to be familiar with the Commission’s proposal earlier.

One of the diplomats said that the mere fact of organizing an urgent meeting, by surprise, on Friday evening raises suspicions. He also expressed the opinion that the Russians are slowly dragging EU companies into business as if nothing had happened. The matter will be continued – at the meeting of the ambassadors of the member states next week.