In a joint statement, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States announced their commitment to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT financial system that connects thousands of banking institutions around the world.

The statement said that this step will ensure the separation of Russian banks from the international financial system, and will harm the capabilities of their financial operations globally.

"We are committed to ensuring that a certain number of Russian banks are taken out of the SWIFT system," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, adding that this ensures that these banks are not connected to the international financial system, harming their ability to carry out operations globally, and all these measures will greatly harm the ability of Putin is financing his war and it will have a very devastating effect on his economy.

She explained that the assets of the Russian Central Bank will be frozen in order to prevent it from accessing its reserves, making it impossible for it to liquidate its balances, and the European Union will work to ban wealthy Russians from using their financial assets in the European Union markets.

Passport Restriction

The European Commission also pledged to take measures to restrict the issuance of golden passports to Russians close to the regime, and the Westerners also agreed to launch a working group next week in order to ensure the effective implementation of the financial sanctions they decided by identifying the targeted persons and entities and freezing their assets.

The European Union has previously imposed sanctions on 64 important Russian institutions, prevented Union banks from accepting deposits worth more than 100,000 euros from Russian citizens, and prevented the sending of necessary goods, services and technology to Russian oil refineries.

Isolate Russia

The Association for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is based in Belgium and links more than 11,000 banks, financial institutions and companies around the world, said it is communicating with European authorities to understand the details of the new procedures by which the United States and European countries decided to exclude Russian banking institutions from The international banking system.

"We are communicating with European authorities to understand the details of the entities that will be subject to the new procedures and are preparing to comply with legal instructions," Swift said in a statement.

In a related context, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed the "need to completely isolate Russia diplomatically and financially," and welcomed the growing desire of Western countries to exclude Moscow from the Swift banking system, Downing Street announced.

"We have taken decisive action with our international partners to exclude Russia from the global financial system," the British prime minister said.

For its part, France announced yesterday evening, Saturday, that it will tighten economic and financial sanctions against Russia, especially by targeting Moscow's use of the Swift platform for international financial transactions.

The French presidency stated that during a meeting of the Defense Council, President Emmanuel Macron decided to "toughen economic and financial sanctions in coordination with the Europeans and Americans, as well as take national measures to freeze the financial assets of Russian personalities, in parallel with new measures to be taken with European partners regarding the Swift system." .

Exit Swift

About 11,000 institutions worldwide benefit from SWIFT services across 212 countries, and most of the institutions benefiting from the SWIFT mechanism are banks, although there is another institution other than banks that benefit from this service, such as non-bank financial institutions and swap companies.

And through Swift technology, money is transferred from one country to another within 24 hours, and this system is also used within the country, but it is more useful in external transactions between countries.

It is noteworthy that the expulsion of any country from the SWIFT system significantly freezes its economic activity, especially if it does not have sources of power and movement in the international environment, and if this is implemented on the Russian Central Bank, as well as its banking system, this means that the movement of exports and imports of goods and services will be affected. Paralyzed, Russia will lose a large part of its foreign trade, estimated at 683 billion dollars in 2020, and may even resort to the barter system for foreign trade, and this margin will be limited and not meet Russia's economic needs.