Cóilín Nunan: Oil, Currency and the War on Iraq
One other OPEC country has been talking publicly about possible conversion to the euro since 1999: Iran, a country which has since been included in the George W. Bush's 'axis of evil'.
A third OPEC country which has recently fallen out with the US government is Venezuela and it too has been showing disloyalty to the dollar. Under Hugo Chavez's rule, Venezuela has established barter deals for trading its oil with 12 Latin American countries as well as Cuba. This means that the US is missing out on its usual subsidy and might help explain the American wish to see the back of Chavez. At the OPEC summit in September 2000, Chavez delivered to the OPEC heads of state the report of the 'International Seminar on the Future of Energy', a conference called by Chavez earlier that year to examine the future supplies of both fossil and renewable energies. One of the two key recommendations of the report was that 'OPEC take advantage of high-tech electronic barter and bi- lateral exchanges of its oil with its developing country customers', i.e. OPEC should avoid using both the dollar and the euro for many transactions....
http://www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm
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