EU
Charles Michel – European Council President
European Council President Charles Michel, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Bavaria, voiced European Union reservations about US President Joe Biden’s announcement of a ban on Russian gold imports and a cap on oil prices. “We are ready to go into more detail and see if it is possible to target gold in a way that does not hurt ourselves,” said Michel. imposing a ceiling on the price of oil in the producing countries discussed at the summit. “I am careful and cautious. “We are ready to go into detail and make a decision together with our partners, but we want to make sure that what we decide will have a negative impact on Russia and not on us,” he said.
RUSSIA
Anton Siluanov – Russian finance minister
Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since the 1917 revolution, according to various media reports. The country missed a deadline of Sunday night to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments of $100m on two Eurobonds originally due on 27 May, Bloomberg reported on Monday morning. Some Taiwanese holders of Russian Eurobonds said on Monday that they had not received interest payments due, two sources told Reuters. Russia, which has offered to pay the debts in roubles, calls any default artificial because it has the money to pay its debts but says sanctions have frozen its foreign currency reserves held abroad. “There is money and there is also the readiness to pay,” Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov said last month. “This situation, artificially created by an unfriendly country, will not have any effect on Russians’ quality of life.”
