From ZeroHedge:
Following a full-court press by western nations, the handful of European holdouts - those most reliant on Russian energy supplies and continued Russian capital flows, such as Germany, Hungary, Italy and Cyprus - who have been adverse to expelling Russia from the SWIFT electronic payment-messaging system, are one by one folding on their objections.
Overnight, Italy joined the growing consensus seeking to kick Russia out of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication global banking system to punish it for the invasion of Ukraine as the European Union weighs up the impact of such an action. Also on Saturday, Poland's prime minister said he had spoken again with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban, who had assured him of Budapest's support for far-reaching sanctions against Russia.
"I talked today again with Prime Minister of Hungary V. (Victor – PAP) Orban. Once again he assured me of support for far-reaching sanctions directed towards Russia. Also including blocking the SWIFT system," Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter.....*****.... “After the shameless attack by Russia, Ukraine must be able to defend itself,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Vice Chancellor Robert Habecksaid in the emailed statement. “It has an inalienable right to self-defense.”At the same time, the government “is working flat out on how to limit the collateral damage of decoupling from SWIFT in such a way that it affects the right people,” they said. “What we need is a targeted and functional restriction of SWIFT."
The German statement indicates that Europe's most important nation, and top importer of Russian gas...
... is still not on the same page as most of its other European peers realizing that an overnight cutoff of Russian gas (something which a SWIFT expulsion would spark) would lead to a crippling hit to the German economy, and instead is seeking a targeted SWIFT cutoff, which course is impossible for the "all or nothing" system. As for the well-known reasons behind Germany's opposition Erik Meyersson, an economist at Svenska Handelsbanken, put it best: “The EU isn’t on board with removing Russia from SWIFT for one thing because the EU isn’t on board with letting go of Russian energy."
In effect, the latest German statement is hardly surprising in light of what Germany's finance minister said on Friday afternoon when he shocked more than a few marketwatchers by saying that 'we are open to cutting Russia off SWIFT' with a German government advisor telling RND that "banning Russia from SWIFT is manageable."
And yet, despite the jawboning Germany is still unwilling (and unable) to pull the plug.....
....MUCH MORE
