Russian officials reacted to the vote in the European Parliament in support of returning Romania’s national treasure, including 91.5 tons of gold, which Russia confiscated following World War I.
The spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that Romania’s debt to Russia and the Soviet Union is 20–25 times greater than the value of the entire Romanian gold reserve sent to Russia during WWI. She also claimed that almost all of the Romanian gold and other valuables were returned.
In the same reaction, Zakharova also said that Romania wants to solve its economic problems by bringing back the topic of the gold treasure.
Her comment, posted on the Facebook page of the Russian Federation’s embassy in Bucharest, comes after the European Parliament approved a resolution saying that Romania’s gold treasure, which weighed 91.5 tons and was sent to Russia for safekeeping between 1916 and 1917, was never fully returned.
According to the post on the embassy’s Facebook page, Maria Zakharova claims that the Romanian debts to Russia and the Soviet Union are equivalent to 1,365–1,665 tons of gold, which is 20–25 times greater than the value of the entire Romanian gold reserve sent to Russia in 1916–1917. She also said that Russia returned almost all of the Romanian gold and other valuables over the course of Soviet-Romanian relations, claiming that even the late communist president Nicolae Ceauşescu acknowledged that 80% of the royal reserve was repatriated to Romania in 1948–1949.
“Romania — a former ally of Hitler — uses Russophobic platforms, for example, the European Parliament, which is prepared for any anti-Russian action, to try to impose its century-old phantom debts on us to remedy the deplorable state of the national economy against the backdrop of farmers’ strikes across the country,” Zakharova said, cited in the embassy’s post.
Vice-chairman of the Russian Security Council and former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev also weighed in, saying that Romania will not receive anything from Russia.
“I don’t even know how to respond to such insolence,” Medvedev wrote on the Russian VKontakte platform, cited by Digi24. He also stated that the European Union “stole Russian assets worth USD 300 billion and is now asking for the return of a bit of gold to Bucharest.”
The European Parliament voted on the resolution on the restitution of the Romanian Treasure seized by Russia on March 14. “It is a matter of national dignity. Romania can and must not accept anything less than the restitution of the 91.5 tons of gold and the entire Cultural Treasure. I thank my colleagues in the European Parliament for their involvement and support,” stated MEP Eugen Tomac, the initiator of the resolution.
(Photo source: Russian MFA on Twitter)
