After weeks of procrastination, Europeans agreed, on the evening of Thursday 1 October, on the adoption of sanctions against around 40 people responsible for the electoral fraud of the 9 August presidential election and the subsequent repression (see EUROPE 12544/9).
At the end of the first day of the European Council, its President, Charles Michel, announced that a written procedure would be launched on Friday to formally adopt the European sanctions. Although the list includes about 40 names, President Alexander Lukashenko will not be on it, he announced.
“Sanctioning him means accepting a refusal to engage in dialogue”, said French President Emmanuel Macron. However, the EU is not ruling this out completely.
Beyond sanctions, EU leaders stress in the conclusions that they do not recognise the presidential elections and call on the authorities to start an inclusive national dialogue.
Condemning the “unacceptable” violence by the authorities and calling for it to end, the European Council gave its full support to the “democratic right of the Belarusian people to elect their President through new free and fair elections, without external interference”. An allusion was made to Russia.
The EU27 also encouraged the European Commission to develop a comprehensive plan for economic support to democratic Belarus.
See the conclusions adopted: https://bit.ly/3nhOKPB (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant, with Mathieu Bion and Pascal Hansens)