The EU tries to economically asphyxiate the Belarusian regime to force the departure of Lukashenko

The EU approved on Monday the expansion of the list of sanctioned Belarusian leaders, to which it has added 78 more people, including prominent businessmen linked to the regime of the country's president, Alexandr Lukashenko. The EU has also paved the way for the first sectoral sanctions with which it intends to hit the economic foundations of the Belarusian regime. The new battery of sanctions has been pending the approval of the European Council, which meets this Thursday and Friday in Brussels. If the summit of European leaders gives the green light, the community punishment will be launched quickly and will force the despot of Minsk to subject his population to severe hardships or to put himself in the hands of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for the help of the Kremlin. .

The measures approved this Monday by the Council of Foreign Ministers of the EU and in coordination with the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, expand the sanctions list, which already numbered 88 people and seven companies.

Now another 78 people and eight entities are added in response "to the escalation in serious human rights violations in Belarus," according to the Council statement.

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The sanctions, according to the Council, affect "several prominent figures in the business sector who support and benefit from the Lukashenko regime." It treats, adds the communiqué, "of a powerful signal that the support to the regime has a substantial cost".

The toughening of the European punishment responds in large part to the hijacking of a commercial flight on June 4, which was forced to land in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, to detain two of its passengers, the Belarusian opponent Roman Protasevich, and his partner, the Russian citizen Sofia Sapega.

The new sanctions will hit the few sectors of the Belarusian economy that can export, that is, potassium production, in which the country is, together with Russia, the main exporter to the EU, and hydrocarbons.

The sanction will also cover the financial sector to limit the regime's room for maneuver.

“There comes a time when stronger measures must be taken, which deeply touch the economic sector.

We are sorry, that will affect the economy and the population "

Josep Borrell, High Representative for Foreign Policy of the EU

“There comes a time when stronger measures must be taken, which deeply touch the economic sector.

We are sorry that this is going to affect the economy and the population ”, said Josep Borrell, High Representative for Foreign Policy of the EU, moments before the meeting of the Council of foreign ministers of the EU that has addressed the situation in Belarus.

The Council, held in Luxembourg, was attended by Svetlana Tijanóvskaya, leader of the opposition against Lukashenko and a firm supporter of economically striking the regime that controls her country.

The EU is the second largest trading partner of Belarus, behind and far behind Russia. The volume of the commercial relationship is relatively small (about 10 billion euros per year), but until 2019 it had increased by 45% in 10 years. Brussels began a rapprochement with Minsk, with a relaxation of previous sanctions, and Lukashenko looked to the EU for an alternative to his feared dependence on Putin.

But the idyll broke last year.

Lukashenko was proclaimed the winner in the general elections held in August, a result that has not been recognized by the EU and that led Tijanóvskaya, who was also claiming victory at the polls, to go into exile in Lithuania.

The alleged blow unleashed a spiral of protests and repression that has condemned Lukashenko to international isolation and a wave of sanctions from the EU, the US or the United Kingdom.

The punishment, until now, had been limited to the successive expansion of the list of Belarusian leaders who are prohibited from entering EU territory and to whom assets that they may dispose of in one of the Member States are frozen.

The list includes 88 people, including Lukashenko, and seven Belarusian companies.

This same Monday it was agreed to expand that black list.

But Brussels recognizes that the impact of these personal sanctions is quite limited, which is why it has decided to reinforce the coup with sectoral sanctions, a weapon that the EU uses only exceptionally to aggravate the situation of the citizens of the country hit and not to inflict damage. to European companies.

But in Lukashenko's case, the EU has felt compelled to respond harshly after the serious air incident and increasing repression.

Borrell stressed that, "there are more than 500 political prisoners [in Belarus], we have witnessed the horrible spectacle of a journalist [Roman Protasevich], who has been kidnapped, making a kind of Maoist-style confession to say" yes, I am guilty. in front of television cameras ”.

The head of European diplomacy believes that in the face of the Belarusian regime "we must use all the means at our disposal and the economic sanctions are for that".

Support to civil society

Union leaders already endorsed economic punishment during the summit held in late May. Technical work has progressed since then, although doubts persisted about the risk that the country's economic asphyxia would leave Lukashenko even more in Putin's hands. Brussels suspects that the Russian president will try to take advantage of this crisis to annex Belarus, as he did with Crimea in 2014.

"Some say that the sanctions leave Belarus in the hands of Russia and in part it is true, but we must react," says a diplomatic source.

The same source advocates compensating the economic blow "with a determined support for civil society."

The European Commission maintains the offer of a aid program of 3,000 million euros, but it is subject to a democratic transition that seems impossible with Lukashenko at the head of the Belarusian government and with Putin as his main godfather.

Another diplomatic source adds that "the drift towards Russia was already underway, regardless of the new economic sanctions."

The same source points out that "Lukashenko thinks that he is Belarus, but he is not."

And he relies on the popular reaction to the country's self-proclaimed leader and the expansionist temptations of the Kremlin.