'Slovakia must withdraw its gold from the United Kingdom as soon as possible'

According to Robert Fico, former prime minister and leader of Slovakia's largest political party, his country needs to use its gold reserves as soon as possible recall from the United Kingdom. The parliament should put this issue on the agenda and urge the central bank to withdraw the gold. In the event of a Brexit or global economic crisis, the safety of gold can no longer be guaranteed, according to the former prime minister. Therefore, the country must take swift steps to withdraw its gold from the Bank of England.

According to the former Prime Minister of Slovakia, it is too risky to keep the gold reserves abroad. He refers to the fact that it is still experienced as traumatic Munich Convention from 1938. A treaty between France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany that allowed Adolf Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia. He had this to say about it:

"Since the Munich Agreement, you can hardly trust even your most loyal allies. I guarantee you that if something happens, we won't see a gram of gold again."

Countries bring back gold

The former prime minister also referred to other countries that have recovered their gold in recent years. He mentioned Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany and Romania, among others. The latter country has yet to retrieve its gold, but the proposal to do so was already received earlier this year Support from the government. In recent years, more and more countries have been withdrawing their gold from the United Kingdom and the United States. The Netherlands also repatriated part of its gold reserves in 2014. In the deepest secrecy, almost 120 tons of gold were Retrieves from the Federal Reserve's gold vault in New York.

Slovakia has a gold reserve of 31.7 tonnes with a market value of €1.3 billion. In the past twenty years, the central bank has sold a few tons of gold twice. The spokesperson for the Slovak central bank did not want to comment on Fico's statements. However, he did say that the central bank is actively trading in gold. On balance, however, the country's gold reserves have hardly changed over the past decade.

This contribution comes from Geotrendlines