Jean-Francois Badias
At a plenary debate in the European Parliament on Tuesday in Strasbourg, Borrell said to MEPs: «I agree with all of you. We are dealing with a dictator. ” Previously, numerous parliamentarians had named Lukashenko accordingly in a debate on the forced plane landing in Belarus.
About two weeks ago, the Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair passenger plane on its way from Athens to Vilnius to make a stopover in Minsk and arrested the government critic Roman Protassewitsch and his friend Sofia Sapega who were on board. The EU then again imposed sanctions on the former Soviet republic. Belarusian airlines have been banned from flying into EU airspace since the weekend. Because of the ongoing suppression of the democracy movement in Belarus, the EU had already passed several sanction packages against supporters of Lukashenko last year.
Borrell emphasized that pressure should continue to be exerted on Lukashenko. At the same time one wants to support the civilian population with all means. He hoped that the EU member states would adopt further punitive measures against Belarus at the next summit. Targeted economic sanctions were agreed for the first time. According to Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD), the potash and phosphate industries, for example, could be targeted in the punitive measures. There are strong Belarusian state-owned companies there, as is the case with the manufacture of oil products. The European Parliament also made proposals to stop trains from Belarus and exclude the country from the Swift payment system.