Brussels, 01/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 1 December, the deputy head of the Eastern Partnership Bilateral Division at the European External Action Service (EEAS), Adriano Martins, suggested that the sanctions against Russia in connection with the conflict in eastern Ukraine could be extended by six months.
Asked about the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the consequences of this for Russia at an EPC conference, Martins said that after listening to Lithuania's foreign minister Linas Linkevicius, who had called for the sanctions to be extended, and after listening to the Polish ambassador to Belgium Artur Harazim, who thought the sanctions should be extended for “a further six months”, it was “easy to guess what the (European) decision could be”. The European Council is expected to discuss the matter on 17-18 December. A Council source told EUROPE that the Council was awaiting the European Council's indications in order to take the issue in hand. The economic sanctions are in force until 31 January 2016. If they were extended for six months, they would run until 31 July 2016.
In the view of Linkevicius, all the sanctions must be extended. He said that he had not thus far felt resistance from the member states for this extension, and while there was sometimes scepticism from some member states, “we have always managed to have an agreement and I don't see why this would not be the case”, he said. “We must be coherent”, he added. In Linkevicius's opinion, the EU must be coherent on three pillars - the Minsk agreements, the sanctions and the support to Ukraine. Europeans have linked the lifting of the sanctions to full implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Like Harazim, Linkevicius said that it would not be possible for the Minsk agreements to be put in place for the end of 2015, as initially planned. The elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions will only take place in early 2016, and border control will then have to be given to the Ukrainians. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)