African Union chief urges EU to ease food payments to Russia – POLITICO

Senegalese President Macky Sall, who at present chairs the African Union, on Sunday known as on Brussels to present some scope for African nations to pay for imported cereals and fertilizers from Russia regardless of EU sanctions excluding Russian banks from worldwide fee methods.

“We need to pay, however it’s turning into unattainable. So we ask the Europeans for a similar mechanism as for gasoline and oil,” Sall told Le Journal du Dimanche in an interview.

Brussels did not impose sanctions on the export of Russian cereals or fertilizers to non-EU nations, however has excluded a number of Russian banks, together with Sberbank, from the worldwide fee mechanism SWIFT. EU guidelines, nonetheless, go away some room for nations to make payments to Russia for different imports akin to gasoline.

Last month, Sall told a gathering of EU leaders that sanctions on Russia’s monetary system and difficulties to find insurers have been threatening imports of grains and fertilizers to Africa. After assembly with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, he once more suggested that Western sanctions contribute to the food disaster.

That drawback was additionally mentioned throughout a bilateral assembly in Paris between Sall and French President Emmanuel Macron final week. Macron then instructed Sall that disruptions don’t have anything to do with EU sanctions, in accordance to an Elysée official.

Sall’s name comes as a Russian naval blockade on the Black Sea is holding again greater than 20 million tons of grain from the world food provide and the U.N., Brussels and Washington are trying to unlock the state of affairs.

Sall stated that Senegal isn’t depending on grain imports, however warned that fertilizer shortages will have an effect on native manufacturing.

“The destabilization of Africa due to famine is as vital as the result of the conflict in Ukraine as we speak,” the African chief warned.

The food disaster might be on the agenda when EU leaders meet on Thursday and Friday in Brussels. Heads of state and authorities are set to again push again in opposition to Moscow’s propaganda and to state that Russia is solely accountable for the present food disaster.