France freezes 22 bln euros worth of CBR assets - Economy Ministry
PARIS. March 20 (Interfax) - France has frozen 22 billion euros in assets of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday.
"More than 22 billion euros of assets of the Central Bank of Russia have been frozen," he said on France's RTL television and radio channel.
These sanctions will harm Russia as a country, as well as its leadership, he said.
Additionally, "150 million euros on personal accounts and 539 million euros worth of real estate were frozen," Le Maire said.
As previously reported, Russia is unable to use nearly half of its gold and foreign currency reserves, precisely about $300 billion, due to sanctions imposed by the United States, Europe and their allies that have blocked Russia's access to that part of its reserves.
"This is about half of those reserves that we had. We have a total of about $640 billion in reserves, while about $300 billion in reserves are now in a condition in which we cannot use them," Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in a March 13 interview with Pavel Zarubin, host of the Moscow. Kremlin. Putin program on the Rossiya-1 television channel, noting that a part of the gold and foreign currency reserves, including the National Welfare Fund (NWF), has been frozen.
The freeze on the reserves caused problems for Russia in meeting its obligations, including its debt obligations, Siluanov said.
On March 1, the United States issued an order prohibiting U.S. citizens from any transactions with the CBR, the Finance Ministry, and the NWF. Similar decisions were announced by the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and Switzerland.
On February 28, the EU approved a decision to freeze the CBR's assets. The document said that any transactions associated with the management of reserves as well as assets of the CBR, including transactions with any legal entity, organization or body acting in the name of or on behalf of the CBR are prohibited.
A freeze on CBR's international reserves was imposed as part of Australia's sanctions package.
The actual structure of reserves is not known, as the CBR discloses detailed information with a lag of at least six months. Recently, the Russian authorities have been actively changing the structure of reserves, diverting from what they consider to be geopolitically risky assets. It is true that there are very few safe reserve assets in the world from this point of view, so it would be impossible to completely resolve the problem before it arises.