De-Dollarization: Putin’s Wedding Trip Seals Marriage of Convenience with Merkel

• De-Dollarization: Putin’s Wedding Trip Seals Marriage of Convenience with Merkel
  by PEPE ESCOBAR, http://www.atimes.com/
  Meeting in Berlin could signal a switch in strategy for Germany when it comes to the US dollar and energy security
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  It was supposed to be a low-key, traditional Austrian wedding until Vladimir Putin pulled up in a black limo. The bride was Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, a top energy analyst and former professor at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna and the European Business School in Frankfurt.
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  She knows all there is to know about multiple aspects of Eurasia integration, which is close to the Russian President’s heart. So close, in fact, that he stole the show by arriving in a convoy, bearing lavish flowers and the Kuban Cossack Choir.
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  After a swirl on the dance floor with the blond-haired, but not blushing, bride, he dashed off to Germany for the real business.
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  This was a three-hour, multi-themed, face-to-face meeting north of Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel. There were no translators as both are fluent in Russian and German as I pointed out in Asia Times.
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  But it was Russian analyst Rostislav Ishchenko in a text featuring a Pushkin analogy – and beautifully translated into English – who unlocked these chain of events.
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  And that brings us to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who wrote in the business paper Handelsblatt about the idea of a European Union payment system bypassing the US dollar, and ultimately, the Iran sanctions.
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  An alternative system is exactly what the BRICS, namely Brazil, Russia, of course, India, China and South Africa, as well as the China-Russia-Iran triumvirate, have been discussing, and slowly implementing for years.
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  Now, let us see if we can decode this brand new EU-wide controversy from three different angles. First up, is an aristocratic German financier now based in Switzerland, who insisted on anonymity.
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  He stressed: “Too many European [and Swiss] financial institutions [and regulators] are run by Americans. And they are extremely afraid of the American rhetoric of locking them out of Wall Street if they misbehave.”
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