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

Senegalese President Macky Sall, who presently chairs the African Union, on Sunday referred to as on Brussels to supply 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 unimaginable. So we ask the Europeans for a similar mechanism as for gasoline and oil,” Sall informed 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, depart some room for nations to make funds to Russia for different imports corresponding to gasoline.

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

That drawback was additionally mentioned throughout a bilateral assembly in Paris between Sall and French President Emmanuel Macron final week. Macron then informed Sall that disruptions don’t have anything to do with EU sanctions, in line with 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 meals provide and the U.N., Brussels and Washington are attempting to unlock the scenario.

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

“The destabilization of Africa as a result of famine is as essential as the result of the conflict in Ukraine in the present day,” the African chief warned.

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