The European Union will analyse shortly the consequences of cutting Russia off from the SWIFT international payments system before deciding whether to use that 'financial nuclear weapon', France's finance minister said on Friday.
FILE PHOTO - A man using a mobile phone passes the logo of global secure financial messaging services cooperative SWIFT at the SIBOS banking and financial conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 19, 2017. Picture taken October 19, 2017.
However, some countries are reluctant to go further by cutting Russia's access to the SWIFT interbank money transfer network over concerns about how payments for Russian energy imports would be made and whether EU creditors would get paid.Therefore EU finance ministers meeting in Paris asked the European Central Bank and European Commission to produce an analysis "in the coming hours" on the consequences of such action, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said.
"When you have a nuclear weapon in your hands, you think before using it, some member states have reservations, France is not one of them," he added.
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