The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Sanctions against Belarus: The EU threatens

2021-05-26T10:02:23.258Z


Landing bans and new economic sanctions: The EU reacted unusually quickly to the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk. But does Belarus really have to fear harsh punishments?


Enlarge image

EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor Angela Merkel at the EU summit

Photo: JOHN THYS / AFP

The European Union, that much was already clear before the start of its special summit on Monday and Tuesday in Brussels, wanted to be determined this time. The landing of a commercial aircraft forced by the Belarusian authorities was an "international scandal," said EU Council President Charles Michel. Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded the immediate release of the arrested blogger Roman Protasewitsch and new sanctions against Belarus. Ursula von der Leyen anticipated the summit result: There would be "a strong answer" to the "hijacking" of the Ryanair plane, said the EU Commission President. "It will have grave consequences."

The signal was clear: after a series of foreign policy embarrassments, from "Sofagate" in Ankara to the botched declaration on the recent outbreak of violence in the Middle East, it was not possible to let Alexander Lukashenko dance around in the face of many in Brussels - See the dictator.

Especially not when he has a European airline hijacked that was traveling between the two EU capitals Athens and Vilnius.

But now the Union runs the risk of not being able to follow up its pithy words with equally pithy deeds.

Because it is by no means clear that the punishment will be really severe in the end.

Details of the sanctions are still open

The heads of state and government decided on measures against Belarus late on Monday evening at their already planned special meeting, including economic sanctions and a ban on Belarusian aircraft flying into EU airspace or landing at EU airports - unusual for Brussels quick and clear response.

The details are still open. According to the summit communiqué, EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell should "immediately" submit proposals as to who exactly could be sanctioned. But that should be tricky, because seven organizations and 88 people in Belarus, including President Alexander Lukashenko himself, have already been subject to punitive measures. "The obvious goals are already on the list," says Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. "Finding more will not be easy." Because those affected must be proven a connection to the reason for the sanctions, otherwise these could be legally open to challenge.

In the end, the council of the responsible EU ministers has to formally decide on the measures.

Here, too, there is a threat of trouble - because it is by no means certain that none of the 27 member states will shoot across the board.

Let us remember the autumn of 2020, when Cyprus blocked sanctions for weeks on account of Lukashenko's election fraud in August.

The government of the island state wanted to force the EU to sanction Turkey for controversial gas drilling in the Mediterranean.

Cyprus only gave up its resistance after weeks of hanging out.

Von der Leyen offers carrots

Even if everything goes well, the question remains whether Lukashenko will be impressed by the new sanctions. The closure of EU airspace and airports only applies to Belarusian airlines, which, according to diplomats, apparently means that only the state airline Belavia is affected. Other airlines could therefore continue to fly from Minsk to Berlin, for example.

The heads of state and government have called on all EU airlines to »avoid overflights from Belarus«.

Some airlines - Lufthansa, Air France, Finnair, KLM, Singapore Airlines, SAS and Air Baltic - have already announced that they will not use Belarusian airspace for the time being.

On Monday, Council President Michel triumphed on Twitter: he wrote “Europe in action” on the screenshot of a flight tracker showing Belarusian airspace as a hole in EU airspace.

How long the airlines fly around the country is up to them.

Belavia can also continue to fly to the EU for the time being - unless individual states have already issued landing bans, as France and Great Britain have already done.

Von der Leyen, on the other hand, tried the classic carrot-and-stick strategy: a three billion euro investment and economic package for Belarus has been in place for a long time, said the commission chief. This remains "frozen until Belarus becomes democratic".

When asked, the Commission was initially unable to answer what exactly this package contains and since when it has existed.

It is also by no means the case that the EU has stopped funding in recent years.

On the website »euprojects.by« the Belarusian government lists 336 projects funded by the EU since 2011; Belarus is helping to "deal with the growing number of migrants".

It will run until February 2022.

Moscow accuses the EU of hypocrisy

How much Lukashenko fears EU sanctions, he demonstrated on Monday evening: while Europe's leaders were still discussing new sanctions against his country, the dictator had the arrested Protasevich shown in a video in which he apparently under duress confesses to having organized mass protests.

Lukashenko could not have signaled much more clearly that he is indifferent to the Brussels summit. The decisive capital for him is Moscow. But there they seemed to be making fun of the EU. "It is shocking that the West calls the incident in Belarusian airspace shocking," wrote a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry on Facebook. After all, a plane owned by the former Bolivian President Evo Morales had to land in Austria in 2013 at the behest of the USA. At the time there were rumors that ex-US intelligence officer Edward Snowden had been on board. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov himself was stressedly relaxed. The incident will be looked at, he said. "But in no hurry."

Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Asselborn thinks this is worrying.

"This is about the absolute fundamentals of international law," said Asselborn.

"When Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, covers the Belarusian approach, things get down to business."

However, it is not in sight that the EU will also tighten its course against Moscow.

The "strategic discussion" about the relationship with Russia was actually right at the top of the summit agenda - until Lukashenko arrived.

The heads of state and government even had to hand in their cell phones in front of the door in the meeting room of the European building in Brussels to discuss their approach to Moscow.

Nevertheless, little new came out in the end: one condemned "the illegal, provocative and corrosive Russian activities against the EU," it said in the conclusions.

The Foreign Representative Borrell is due to present a report on options for the EU-Russia relationship by June.

However, it was also announced on Monday that US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are planning a summit meeting for June.

In a joint declaration it was said that normalizing relations was "in the interests of both countries."

The meeting is to take place in Switzerland.

In Brussels you will then be able to watch how global politics are being made there.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-05-26

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.