The National (UAE) EU Considers Russian bank Concession to Secure Black Sea Grain Deal Future

The European Union is considering a subsidiary proposal from a Russian bank to try to safeguard the Black Sea grain deal, according to reports, fulfilling a key demand from Moscow to extend the vital agreement. 

The subsidiary would allow the sanctioned Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to reconnect to the global Swift network, the Financial Times reported on Monday. 

Moscow's plan, proposed through UN-brokered talks, would let the bank unit handle payments related to grain exports, the paper said. 

It comes as Russia threatens the future of the deal, saying it saw "no reason" for its extension beyond July 17. 

The deal — which the UN called "critical" for global food supply chains — allows grain exports to be shipped from certain Black Sea ports and was last extended in May. 

"Russia has repeatedly extended the deal in the hope of positive changes," Gennady Gatilov, Russia's UN envoy in Geneva, told Izvestia on Monday. 

"However, what we are seeing now does not give us grounds to agree to maintaining the status quo." 

Reconnecting the bank to the Swift system was among several Russian demands to extend the deal, which were ultimately not met. 

Moscow has threatened to walk away from the deal this month if its demands to improve grain and fertiliser exports remain unfulfilled. 

Ukraine has said it is 99.9 per cent certain Russia will quit the deal. 

Olha Trofimtseva, Ukraine's foreign ministry ambassador at large, said Russian ammonia producer Uralchem had found an alternative route and did not need to export ammonia via the port of Odesa. 

"The grain corridor. 99.9 per cent that Russia will leave it in July," she said late last month. 

Slow inspections and the exclusion of a major Ukrainian port from the deal have already dealt a major hit to global food supplies, the UN has warned. 

Food exports through the corridor plummeted to 1.3 million metric tonnes in May from a peak of 4.2 million metric tonnes last October, marking the lowest volume since the initiative's inception last year. 

Back in May, Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Programme, told the BBC she was "very worried" Russia may not renew the deal amid increased difficulty in feeding the world as a result of the war in Ukraine.