The European Commission (EC) doesn’t rule out the possibility of disconnecting Russia’s Sberbank from SWIFT, EC Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans said on air of France Inter radio on March 3, Report informs referring to TASS.
“We have gone far enough with sanctions against Russia. We have a few more tools at our disposal,” he said. “The most important bank for Russia is Sberbank. We could disconnect it from the SWIFT system. This possibility still exists.”
He also said that next week he will present measures that can help get rid of energy dependence on Russia. “The European Commission will present proposals next week to create a situation in which we will no longer be dependent on Russia in the energy sector. We need to move faster on renewable energy,” Timmermans said.
Earlier, sanctioned Russian banks VTB, Rossiya, Otkritie, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, Sovcombank and VEB.RF were disconnected from SWIFT. The restrictions will come into effect on March 12. From that day on, it will also be prohibited to sell, deliver, transfer or export euro banknotes to Russia, according to the EU regulation.