Permanent representatives of the EU countries have agreed on sectoral sanctions against Belarus. They can be accepted this week
The Committee of Permanent Representatives of the European Union has agreed on a package of sectoral sanctions against Belarus, sources told TASS and RIA Novosti. The information was also confirmed by a source of RBC.
It is expected that the sanctions list will be published in the official journal of the EU after the final approval by the EU leaders at the summit in Brussels, which will be held on June 24 & ndash;25.
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On June 21, the package of sectoral sanctions against Belarus was agreed by the foreign ministers of the EU countries. According to the head of the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry, Jean Asselborn, the restrictions will also affect the export of potash and petrochemical products to the European Union, as well as the financial sector of Belarus, writes DPA.
Earlier this week, the European Union imposed new sanctions against Belarus. 78 people fell under the restrictions, including the son of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Dmitry, the daughter-in-law of the Belarusian leader (Lilia Lukashenko, the wife of the eldest son of President Viktor), the head of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus Alexey Avramenko and the director of the aviation Department Artem Sikorsky, Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin, as well as Russian businessman Mikhail Gutseriev.
The EU has also imposed sanctions against eight organizations. Among them are the automakers MAZ and BelAZ, the New Oil Company and Belaeronavigation. Following the EU, the United States, Great Britain and Canada also imposed sanctions against a number of Belarusian citizens and organizations. Belarus has promised that Western sanctions will not remain unanswered.
The European Union has imposed new sanctions against Belarus “in connection with the escalation of serious human rights violations in Belarus and the violent suppression of civil society, the democratic opposition and journalists”. Among other things, we are talking about the suppression of protests in the republic, which began after the presidential elections. Most Western countries did not recognize the victory of Alexander Lukashenko and condemned the violence during the dispersal of demonstrators. The President of Belarus himself called the elections legitimate. In his opinion, the protests in the country are led from abroad.
In addition, the EU considers the landing of a Ryanair passenger plane in Minsk on May 23 to be “forced and illegal”. The airliner was en route from Athens to Vilnius, but after the bomb was reported, it landed urgently in Belarus. The information about mining was not confirmed. While the plane was in Minsk, two passengers were removed from it-Roman Protasevich, the former editor-in-chief of the opposition Telegram channel Nexta, and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega. They were later arrested.
In turn, the Belarusian authorities insist that the crew of the Ryanair plane independently decided to urgently land in Minsk in accordance with international aviation safety rules. According to the President of the Republic Alexander Lukashenko, Western countries are using the incident with the Ryanair liner to “rock the situation to the level of August last year”, when protests began in Belarus after the presidential elections.