The European Union has reached an agreement to place economic sanctions on Belarus and the authoritarian Lukashenko administration following the government grounding a Ryanair flight to arrest a journalist in May.
Alexander Lukashenko in 2014. Credit: Okras via Wikimedia Commons
Alexander Lukashenko (pictured in 2014) has been facing increasing pressure from the European Union and other Western lawmakers over the arrest of an independent journalist in May. Credit: Okras via Wikimedia Commons (Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0)
Brussels reached the agreement following talks on Friday, with EU foreign relations chief Josep Borrell confirming the finer details of the economic sanctions on Monday (June 21).
Read more: Western lawmakers mull action over Ryanair "hijacking" and arrest of journalist
Roman Protasevich, the former editor of Nexta, one of the nation's largest independent press organisations, was detained after a flight from Greece to Lithuania was redirected and grounded in Minsk on May 23, 2021.
His arrest was met with significant backlash from Western lawmakers, who referred to the incident as a "highjacking" and immediately began considering sanctions - such as declaring the nation's airspace as "unsafe" and mulling outright travel bans - echoing sentiments from opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who suggested an international no-fly zone to be placed over Belarus.
Ryanair's CEO Michael O’Leary also admitted he would be speaking with experts to determine whether his company would continue to operate within the nation.
Lukashenko's government defended the hijacking, citing a bomb threat, which was met with widespread condemnation from the EU and its allies. They also claimed Protasevich was an "extremist" planning a revolution.
The new sanctions represent the bloc's strongest action yet against Minsk and include restrictions on the country's financial sector, including bans on loans to Belarusian banks, a ban on buying short-term bonds and a ban on EU banks providing investments within the country.
In addition, there will be a ban on the exporting of telecommunications equipment that could be used in surveillance and an absolute ban on the sales of hunting rifles.
Austria, whose Raiffeisen Bank International's subsidiary, Priorbank, initially rejected the deal before caving in to pressure.
"With this agreement, the EU is sending a clear and targeted signal against the Belarusian regime's unbearable acts of repression," its foreign ministry said after eventually concurring with the 26 other member states on Monday.
The new sanctions will not be legally binding until an EU Summit on Thursday, where it is expected the agreement will be ratified.
EU ministers are also mulling a ban on at least 86 Belarusian government officials and "eight entities," forming the third round of sanctions on Belarusian individuals, including Lukashenko himself.
Asset freezes have also formed part of these sanctions.
Read more: EU member states to challenge Commission over gas defunding
Lukashenko, who has been president since 1994, has been facing sterner opposition since the country's elections in September 2020.
Critics have accused his administration of rigging the election to win a sixth term.
Belarus has no tenure cap for its head of state, meaning they can remain seated indefinitely.
Restrictions on tobacco imports from Belarus, formed as part of the agreement, are expected to hit Lukashenko's income more directly.
The EU is also set to place restrictions on purchases from Belarus of oil and its various related products, and potash, a potassium-rich salt, which is a major export for the country.
This may prove a minor pitfall for the EU, however, who imported as much as €1.2 billion of chemicals and a further €1 billion in oil products last year, according to Eurostat. It is likely that, if necessary to the economy, the bloc will have to look further afield for these goods.
This news comes one week after news the Boeing-Airbus deal may finally be coming to an end, representing other set of major sanctions by the EU on the US.
Read more: The end is in sight for the Boeing-Airbus dispute
One of the diplomates involved in the process confirmed there may be special exemptions for humanitarian causes, and that the sanctions should not directly affect the incomes of private Belarusian citizens.
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