As the world order finds its new balance, some of the moving pieces are made of solid gold. The main European central banks have begun repatriating their gold reserves held at the Federal Reserve in New York. Last week, the Netherlands made it public, but France and Germany had already made recent moves, while Italy resists the growing public pressure to bring the reserves back. The Bank of Spain acknowledges having part of its gold reserves in the United States, but for confidentiality reasons does not report the proportion relative to the total, nor whether it will relocate them.
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The main reason is not only the distrust generated by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. In 2022, the freezing of Russian assets abroad as part of the sanctions program for the invasion of Ukraine raised alarms in non-aligned countries. In 2024, India made a massive repatriation of gold it held in custody at the Bank of England, a move it later extended to reserves held in Basel. Venezuela has tried to repatriate the reserves it has in London to rebuild the country after the earthquake, but London has not relinquished custody since 2018 for not recognizing the monetary authority of Caracas. London is one of the largest global gold trading centers, which provides a lot of liquidity to the reserves. But in times of rising authoritarianism, that immediacy no longer has as much appeal.
“Bringing gold to Spain would not be a sovereign gesture, it would be part of the European Union’s strategic autonomy scheme,” says Luis Garvía, professor at the Institute of Stock Market Studies (IEB). Spain is especially secretive about the gold it manages, only giving the total figure: nine million troy ounces (281 tons) which in 2025 were equivalent to about 33.2 billion euros. It is known that the vast majority is in the Gold Chamber of the Bank of Spain, but an undetermined part is in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, the Bank of England, and New York. Despite being the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone, it ranks sixth in gold holdings, tied in quantity with Austria, whose Central Bank details its reserve distribution: most in Vienna, but the UK holds 84 tons and Switzerland, 56.
Unlike other European capitals, Spanish gold is a recent acquisition. During the Civil War, the Bank of Spain sent gold to Moscow and Paris to pay for the Republican defense; by the end of the conflict, the reserves had been depleted. A few years later, the world sat down at the table at the Bretton Woods Conference, where they designed the new international financial architecture based on the gold standard. Despite the regime’s isolationism, Spain joined the IMF in 1958 and by then had equipped itself with gold currencies that allowed it to be part of the system. Until 1972, one ounce of gold was equivalent to 35 dollars, and with that fixed exchange rate, central banks stored the metal that served as the basis for issuing currency. “Gold is not just any financial instrument. It is the basis of monetary policy and how to manage trust,” explains Garvía.
Although the world abandoned the gold standard, central banks worldwide still maintain it to support currencies, along with other assets such as foreign currency (mainly dollars) or public debt. In 2007, a few months before the Great Recession began to be felt, Madrid ordered the disposal of almost a third of the gold it found “unprofitable,” one of the reasons why it holds much less than its neighbors.
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Although the gold of each euro capital is managed individually — and in response to this newspaper, the European Central Bank says it has not issued any recommendation on its repatriation — national reserves count as part of the total Eurosystem cushion. The ECB also has its own gold but relies on the rest for backing the common currency. Frankfurt has more preference for public debt, something not all experts view favorably. Santiago Carbó, professor at CUNEF, believes a concerted action by the Eurosystem would be appropriate, and not to open the door to “abrupt repatriations.”
Market sources requesting anonymity point out that the amount of Spanish gold deposited at the Federal Reserve would be small, and that is why Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, analyst at the Willybit platform, believes it would be better not to touch it. “I see a very remote and very unlikely scenario of embargo or seizure of these reserves. The impact is symbolic… and things are already bad enough to give them useless excuses,” he concludes.
This is not the case for Germany, the largest holder of gold reserves in the world, which still has a third sleeping in Manhattan. Financial Times estimates that, along with Italy — where gold repatriation has become a state matter — they have around 210 billion euros in the United States. The trend, moreover, is for central banks to continue buying more gold as a safe haven asset, with particular appetite from emerging markets like Brazil. Washington’s intention that the dollar no longer be the currency of last resort is also another piece that turns the gold ounce on the global board, far from Trump’s domains.
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