“Slovakia will act in unison with the EU member states when buying gas from Russia. It was at our request that the agreement on the EU approach to payments for gas imports from Russia began. Even in this situation, unity is key, and we insist on respect for the contractual settlements in euros,” the head of government wrote.
3 April Slovak Economy Minister Richard Sulik declared the possibility of the country agree to the demands of Russian President Vladimir Putin and pay for Russian gas supplies in rubles.
Context:
March 23, Putin announced the decision to transfer payment for Russian gas supplies to “unfriendly” countries in Russian rubles. The Kremlin added that will not supply gas to countries that have refused to pay in rubles. Solution entered into force on April 1.
After the imposition of sanctions against the Russian Federation, the Russian authorities called all EU countries, the USA, Great Britain, Switzerland, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Ukraine and a number of other states “unfriendly”.
G7 countries – USA, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – refused to pay rubles for gas. Also opposed Poland and Slovakiaand then the whole European Union.
On March 30, after a conversation between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Putin, the FRG announced that G7 agreements on paying for Russian gas only in dollars and euros remain in force. The Russian Federation proposed a scheme according to which payments in euros would be transferred to the non-sanctioned Gazprombank, then the bank would convert the payment into rubles.
The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation also stated that since they lost access to half of their gold and foreign exchange reserves due to sanctions, will pay debts to “unfriendly” countries in rubles. However, after that the Russian government reported on the payment of external debt in foreign currencyavoiding sovereign default.
—
