Our colleagues from RTL spoke to Nicolas Mackel, CEO of Luxembourg for Finance, about the potential implications of the sanctions on Luxembourg's financial sector.
Europe has reacted to the continuing escalations in the Ukraine conflict with financial sanctions designed to hurt Moscow. According to Nicolas Mackel from Luxembourg for Finance, the impact for the Luxembourgish sector should however be limited.
It is difficult to assess how things will play out in practice, admitted Mackel. Luxembourg has to follow the standards set by the EU, which means that if Russian targets have assets in the country's financial sector, they will no longer be able to access them.
Nevertheless, impacts will remain relatively insignificant, believes Mackel: "I don't think that many of the people who are sanctioned really had a lot of money in Luxembourg. It probably only represents a minor part of their activities, same as is the case with Russian businesses. The global economic impact of the geopolitical situation will play a more important role."
Mackel further explained that Russia is creating geopolitical tensions, which necessarily have consequences: "Stock markets suffer, which you see happen all around the world. The second thing is that energy prices will continue to rise, because the market expects that we will have less access to Russian gas and petrol."
While the sanctions issued in 2014 were more individually targeted, the ones coming now will be on a much larger scale, concluded Mackel.
