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Brussels - European Union foreign ministers prepared to crack down on Belarus' leaders and offer more support to the opposition as they met in Brussels on Monday.
In recent years, the EU has offered the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko a cautious rapprochement, suspending a raft of sanctions in the hope of encouraging more democratic behaviour. But that attitude lost favour in December after the regime cracked down on pro-democracy activists.
'Lukashenko has discredited himself completely. There are people who are suffering in jail because they were candidates in the election, it's unacceptable ... Everything we offered to Belarus has evaporated,' Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said.
Diplomats said that the ministers were all but certain to reimpose their sanctions - a range of visa bans and asset freezes - on top regime figures including Lukashenko and his family.
More debate was expected on the question of how best to support Belarus' beleaguered pro-democracy movement and non-governmental organizations.
'We should adopt and pass strict measures on official people, and ... we should take the political decision on the fast opening of the European borders to Belarusian civil society,' Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis said.
Lithuania and Poland have already made it easier for Belarusian citizens to obtain visas to their countries, but it would take the agreement of the whole bloc to grant them easier access to the Schengen zone, which covers most of the EU.
That is a sensitive issue, as recent moves to extend visa freedom to Albania and Bosnia led to EU states complaining of a surge in asylum applications from those countries.
'If we take just restrictive measures on officials it's quite easy, but to go through all the bureaucracy of the EU to open (the borders) is a much bigger challenge,' Azubalis acknowledged.
