WEBVTT

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first of all, I'm hearing a lot of companies

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say, look, it's unclear whether there's a work

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around this and we can pay in rubles doing a

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certain thing and they're asking for clarity from the commission

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and the commission says, well, we've been clear

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, you just can't pay in rubles. Yes,

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francine. And you can see why this is very

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confusing for everyone. The reality is the only thing

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that's certain now is that Russia is now engaging in

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gasses geopolitical weapon. And this is the scallop story

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in this conflict with Ukraine. But when you look

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at the reality on the ground and the paperwork,

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the lawyers here are gonna have to work overtime when

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you look at the commission, they said yesterday,

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Yes, it was being in breach of sanctions.

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Anything that facilitates rubles would be a problem. But

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for companies, they say, well, if we

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pay gas from bank, which is not sanctioned and

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has not been cut off from the swift, then

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where is the problem? So this stage, there's

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a lot of confusion here. I don't think it's

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easy for companies to navigate this. And in fact

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there's pressure, not just from companies, but also

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from officials yesterday, european ambassadors actually had a meeting

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here in brussels and they urged the commission to issue

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new guidance and francine. The idea is that in

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about three hours time there is an expected press conference

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from marshall of underlying and she is believed to uh

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come up with some explanation to this. But again

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, francine, it's very unclear. I don't think

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anyone has an answer at this point, Maria,

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do we know? Do we have any clarity if

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this is taking europe closer to a full energy embargo

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on Russia? Well, what we know is that

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this situation of course, has created tension between countries

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that say we would pay in rubles. I mean

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Hungary has come out on the record many times singing

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that for them, it would not be a problem

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. We know that for potential buyers also looked at

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those types of accounts, of course you're paying euros

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. Gazprom would do the conversion, but in reality

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, of course, you're helping Russia to not just

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prop up the currency and the reserves, but also

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sidesteps some of the central bank sanctions. So this

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is creating at this point, tension between the EU

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27. So of course, it's testing that unity

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. The criticism is that Russia right now is doing

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divide and conquer between the different member states and it

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does bring a very fair point. Here is the

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EU going to front run potential moves from Russia by

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going, I rather embargo first. Before you cut

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it off. Keep it in mind, there's a

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deadline coming up in mid May, or do they

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wait for the Russians to make a move and then

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respond. But I think the key issue for me

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here is that Russia has been very successful over the

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past 48 hours to really test the limits of this

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partnership between the 27 members of the european union,

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which until now had been very united and had put

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on a very united, effective front.