The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leinen, stressed that the export of goods to Russia collapsed by 70%, and the default is “a matter of time”
Ursula von der Leinen
Western sanctions are increasingly affecting the stability of the economy Russia, and default is only a matter of time. The President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, said this in an interview with Bild.
The politician noted that, according to forecasts, GDP in Russia will decrease by 11%, as hundreds of large companies and experts left the country. In addition, the interlocutor of the publication called the state bankruptcy of the country “a matter of time”.
“Sanctions week after week are eating deeper into the Russian economy: exports of goods to Russia have collapsed by 70%”, — stressed the head of the EC.
Since the end of February, Western countries, including the US and the EU, have already tightened sanctions against Russia several times. Restrictions also affected financial institutions and about half of the international reserves of the Central Bank. Washington banned Russia from using its frozen dollar reserves to pay off its external debt starting April 4.
Because of this, the Russian Ministry of Finance delayed payments on at least two issues of Eurobonds. Earlier, RBC wrote that the Ministry of Finance had been paying interest on Eurobonds since mid-March, using the dollar reserves of the Central Bank, although they had been blocked since February 28 due to sanctions.
April 6, the Russian Ministry of Finance announced that Russia had made payments for the first time on dollar issues «Russia-2022» and “Russia-2042” in rubles, because the foreign correspondent bank refused to accept the ministry's payment for government bonds in dollars.
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At the same time, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov pointed out that there were no grounds for a real default by Russia, since the country has the means to pay its debts. “Theoretically, of course, some kind of default situation can be organized, but this is a purely artificial situation,” — he noted.
On April 11, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Russia would go to court if Western countries tried to default on its default on Eurobonds.
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