Seven countries, including Ukraine, have joined the EU sanctions against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. This is stated in the statement of the EU High Representative.
40 officials were added to the sanctions list.
“The candidate countries Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, which are part of the European Economic Area, and Ukraine, join this Council decision,” the statement said.
At a special summit, the EU heads of state discuss the consequences of the controversial election victory of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus. In Brussels, it is usually extremely difficult to reconcile 27 interests. Not so in the case of Belarus. Because in the EU there is concern that the country could be driven into the arms of Moscow.
Elections that were neither free nor fair from an EU perspective. Demonstrators who were jailed and beaten – the European Union does not want the Belarus regime to get away with this. At the end of last week, the EU foreign ministers formulated what they saw as a clear answer: additional sanctions. The heads of state and government are now discussing a special virtual summit.
The EU is expressly on the side of civil society – the people who take to the streets in the country and do not want to come to terms with the results of the presidential elections. “There must be no interference from outside,” writes EU Council President Charles Michel in his invitation to the video summit – a clear demand on Moscow to hold back.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered help to Lukashenko in several phone calls. And the Kremlin, for its part, warns the EU: After a phone call between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Putin, Moscow declared: “Any attempt at outside interference that could lead to further escalation is unacceptable.”
What action is the EU taking?
As a first step, the EU foreign ministers offered the Belarusian regime carrot and stick at the end of last week: They proposed a dialogue and at the same time expanded the punitive measures against those responsible for the violence against demonstrators and the election fraud. The EU foreign representative Josep Borrel is working on a corresponding list of sanctions. It is unclear whether President Lukashenko will also be on it.
One thing is certain: the punitive measures should not affect the people who are demonstrating – but rather those who are in power as precisely as possible. Entry bans and account blockades are conceivable. Gustav Gressel from the foreign policy think tank “European Council on Foreign Relations” considers sanctions to be an important instrument: “They show the regime the red line, but also give it the opportunity to take back repression.”
There have already been far-reaching EU sanctions – against 170 officials and state-owned companies in Belarus; also an arms embargo. Most of the measures were lifted in February 2016 because Lukashenko released political prisoners.