By Andrei Skvarsky.
A vice-president of the European Parliament has proposed limiting the convertibility of the Russian ruble as an addition to the Western sanctions imposed on Russia for its presumed support for the separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
Curbing the international use of the Russian currency in this way would be part of a “well-tested strategy that has dealt an effective blow to the economic interests of Russia”, Ryszard Czarnecki, the Polish deputy head of the European Union’s legislature, told a news conference at the Polish parliament in Warsaw last week.
“Visa and MasterCard refused to serve Bank of Moscow clients and this had a spectacular effect,” he said.
Restricting the ruble’s convertibility would be just one of the new penalties proposed by Czarnecki on behalf of his Polish party, Law and Justice.
Others would be “reduction of demand for Russian energy – oil and gas – and cutting prices for those products to the minimum”, Czarnecki said. The West should seek “an agreement with principal Arab exporters” launching a mechanism to bring the price of Russian oil and gas down, he insisted.
Czarnecki is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament. His career in Poland has included membership of parliament and government portfolios. He has also worked as a journalist in Britain, where he was born, and in Poland.
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