Germany should repatriate its gold reserves from the U.S., MEP suggests

Germany stores a lot of its gold in the United States, but the chair of the European Parliament’s defense committee thinks that’s no longer warranted.

The Bundesrepublik’s high-ranking representatives in the EU legislature have called on Berlin to repatriate well over a thousand metric tons of the precious metal.

The German government needs to move fast, the lawmaker says, citing the American ally’s hard-to-predict conduct under President Trump’s current administration.

Keeping so much German gold in the U.S. is no longer justified, MEP claims

More than a third of Germany’s gold reserves are currently stored across the Atlantic, and this is not acceptable anymore, according to Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

According to a report by the German news magazine Der Spiegel, she is urging the Federal Government in Berlin and the Bundestag to act quickly to amend the situation.

Calls are mounting to withdraw the German gold reserves from America, in the light of the “unpredictable” U.S. policies under Donald Trump, the article noted.

Strack-Zimmermann, who chairs the European parliamentary Committee on Security and Defense, told the leading weekly publication:

It may have made sense to keep a significant portion of the national assets in the United States during the Cold War, but the geopolitical situation has fundamentally changed, the German politician elaborated.

She went on to point out that “trust in the reliability of transatlantic partners alone cannot replace” her country’s sovereignty over economy and security.

Germany still holding half of its gold reserves abroad

For decades, a lot of Germany’s gold has been located abroad for various historical and market reasons. The Bundesbank keeps 1,236 tons of the precious metal, worth around €164 billion (over $193 billion), at the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York.

The Federal Republic built up its gold reserves during the “economic miracle” years in the 1950s, when gold was often used to settle bilateral surpluses and deficits. In less than a decade, the Bundesbank received a total of 48.7 million ounces of fine gold, the Spiegel recalled.

In the new century, between 2013 and 2017, the central bank transferred a portion of its gold reserves from Paris and New York to Germany. It decided to split the country’s gold in two, keeping half of it in its vaults and the rest at the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.

Just because Germany is the legal owner of this gold doesn’t mean it can exercise unrestricted physical control over it, the magazine remarked. This poses a growing risk in light of current international tensions, it wrote.

Strack-Zimmermann appealed to all relevant German institutions to do what she deems urgent and necessary:

She also insisted that the Bundesbank and the Federal Ministry of Finance are obliged to assess the political and legal risks of storing the gold abroad and suggested discussing the future of the reserves at a dedicated session of the German parliament.

Zimmermann’s is not a lonely voice in Germany. Previously, a former head of the Bundesbank’s research department, Emanuel Mönch, commented for the business daily Handelsblatt that “it seems risky to store so much gold in the U.S.” and advised the monetary authority to consider repatriation.

Amid geopolitical instability and trade tensions, including between the U.S. and its allies on the Old Continent, gold prices have soared to all-time highs this year. Other nations around the world have actively sought to increase their gold reserves.

The future of the Danish territory of Greenland, wanted by Trump’s America for alleged national security reasons, became the latest apple of discord between Washington and the European Union.

A recent report from Denmark revealed that Danes have been downloading apps helping them boycott American-made goods in stores as a way to vent their anger over current U.S. policies.

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