Belarus has prepared and has been implementing measures in response to the European Union’s decision to impose sanctions on Belarusian officials. The reciprocal measures will affect over 150 people from the European Union and the USA, the news agency Interfax West quoted a source in the government.
Among other people the measures will affect President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, member of the European Parliament Jacek Protasiewicz and several other politicians, parliamentarians, journalists, who are renowned for their most odious initiatives with regard to Belarus.
The source said that restrictions had been enforced with regard to issuing visas to “several people, who treat the Republic of Belarus in a most biased and destructive manner, who played the key role in spinning up the crisis in relations between Belarus and the West”.
However, Belarus will go beyond using visa sanctions. Several other reciprocal measures may involve matters of transboundary cooperation, the operation of certain foreign foundations and NGOs in Belarus. The measures are likely to be proportional and differential instead of Belarus responding to the US and EU sanctions in a mirror-like way.
It has been reported earlier that on 31 January the EU Council enforced visa sanctions against 157 Belarusian officials. The list is headed by President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. On 21 March the heads of the foreign ministries of the European Union member states are supposed to decide on expanding the list of no-entry Belarusian officials. An additional 19 Belarus officials will be included in the lists of persons subject to restrictive measure. The updated lists will be published in the Official Journal on 22 March.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told RFE/RL that the number of names on the sanctions list has increased because the situation in Belarus has worsened.
“We don’t see any progress in the behavior of the Belarusian authorities. Quite the contrary," he said. "So yes, we will be considering additional measures. We hope that President Lukashenko comes to his senses. But so far he has given no indication of that, so I am afraid that his relation with the EU will continue to suffer.”
Sikorski didn’t include in those additional measures, however, excluding Minsk from the Eastern Partnership, a forum in which the EU discusses visa and trade facilitation with post-Soviet countries.
“We would like Belarus to be a constructive member of the Eastern Partnership," he said. "And that is still open to Belarus. We are not indifferent to what is happening in our immediate neighborhood, and we sympathize with the plight of the Belarusian people.”
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was equally skeptical of sidelining Belarus too much from the Eastern Partnership agenda, but told RFE/RL that the Belarusian president would be a notable absentee at the forum’s summit in October.
“We still want some avenues of contact with the Belarusian authorities when it comes to issues such as environmental protection or visa facilitation, which is in the interests of ordinary Belarusians," Bildt said. "In these cases, we have to negotiate with the Belarusian authorities. But when we have the Eastern Partnership summit, then it is quite obvious who isn’t welcome.”
The EU will now focus on helping Belarusian civil society in various ways. Several neighboring countries have scrapped, or are about to scrap, visa fees for Belarusian students, and Lithuania is considering providing legal assistance to some of the persecuted Belarusians.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis told RFE/RL that Vilnius could send lawyers to Minsk to defend individuals belonging to the opposition.
“We do have bilateral agreements with Belarus and Lithuania on legal assistance, which allows our lawyers to go, talk, and be present in Belarusian courts and vice versa,” Azubalis said.
The Latvian Foreign Minister Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis called on a detailed assessment of the consequences before making decisions on further restrictive measures, to avoid them affecting the Belarus population. The minister stressed that when revising EU's economic relations with Belarus, the interests of all EU member states, including Latvia, should be considered, the am.gov.lv reported.
On the sidelines of today’s foreign affairs meeting, the EU commissioner in charge of enlargement and neighborhood policy, Stefan Fule, chaired a meeting with Belarusian representatives of civil society.
The participants discussed how to deliver aid to Belarus more efficiently after a fund-raising conference in Warsaw in February pledged 87 million euros ($120 million) to Belarusian opposition movements.
The European Commission has announced that Brussels will send some 17 million euros to Belarus in the form of direct aid over the next two years.
Several southern EU member states, led by Spain, have questioned the distribution of money in the EU’s neighborhood policy, arguing that more funds must be channeled to the countries in North Africa after the recent uprisings there.
