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Two of Europe’s most influential financial institutions signaled a shift in their dollar exposure this week. The Dutch central bank confirmed it has transferred 86 metric tons of gold from the United States and Canada to the United Kingdom, while Norway’s sovereign wealth fund proposed lowering the benchmark weighting of U.S. Treasuries from 34.1% to 21.9% — a reduction of nearly $80 billion. The moves, announced separately, point to a common concern: mounting geopolitical risk is pushing key European players to reduce their reliance on the dollar system.
The Dutch central bank, DNB, said Wednesday that between March and August it moved more than a quarter of its gold reserves held in New York and Ottawa to London. The transfer totaled roughly 86 metric tons. After the relocation, London holds 32.1% of Dutch gold reserves, the central bank’s cash center in Zeist holds 30.8%, and New York and Ottawa each hold 18.5%.
DNB’s explanation was blunt. Gold stored in London meets international trade standards and is “the world’s most easily tradable gold,” the bank said, strengthening its crisis preparedness. Gold bars held in the United States and Canada, by contrast, could not be deployed as quickly or directly in a crisis.
“With this relocation, we have improved the tradability of our gold reserves,” DNB Governor Olaf Sleijpen said in a statement. “We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness.”
The transfer comes as gold prices have surged nearly 25% over the past 12 months and U.S.-Iran tensions over the Strait of Hormuz remain unresolved. France took a similar step earlier, replacing 129 metric tons of gold held at the New York Federal Reserve between July 2025 and January 2026. The Bank of France governor said at the time that the decision was not politically motivated.
Norway’s $2.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, published a letter this week recommending significant changes to its benchmark bond index. The proposal would cut the weighting of government bonds from 70% to 50%, with U.S. Treasuries — the fund’s largest government bond holding — taking the biggest hit.
According to Reuters calculations, the fund held about $215 billion in U.S. Treasuries as of the end of June. The proposed change would reduce that exposure by nearly $80 billion.
“A government share of 50 per cent will be sufficient to cover the liquidity needs, including in periods of turbulence in financial markets,” Norges Bank Governor Ida Wolden Bache and Norges Bank Investment Management CEO Nicolai Tangen wrote in the letter.
Under the proposal, U.S. government debt would fall from 34.1% to 21.9% of the bond index, while euro area government debt would decline from 16.8% to 14.1%. Japanese government bonds would rise from 4.6% to 7.4%, and the U.K. allocation would stay at 4.2%. U.S. non-government debt, however, would jump from 16.2% to 27.6%, meaning the overall dollar share in the bond index would only dip from 52.9% to 52.5%.
The fund said any changes would be phased in gradually to limit market impact and transaction costs.
On the surface, the Dutch gold transfer and Norway’s proposed Treasury cut are separate operational decisions. But the underlying logic is strikingly similar. Neither institution is announcing a bearish view on dollar assets or framing the moves as political. Instead, both are focused on tradability, liquidity needs, and concentration risk — building buffers for scenarios that may never arrive.
Sleijpen’s wording — expecting never to need the reserves, yet strengthening preparedness anyway — captures the tone of the broader shift. For European policymakers, the location of gold bars and the composition of bond benchmarks are no longer purely technical questions. They have become part of crisis planning.
