The Ministers for Foreign Affairs will meet in Luxembourg on Monday, 12 October, with many topics on the table.
A few days after the adoption of sanctions following an agreement at the European Council (see EUROPE 12572/2), ministers will consider conclusions on the situation in Belarus which they are expected to adopt.
The EU Council is expected to consider how to engage the authorities in an inclusive national dialogue, but also the possibility of expanding the list of sanctions against the authorities. A new discussion on whether or not to include Alexander Lukashenko could therefore take place.
Ministers could revisit European diplomatic coordination, as Minsk has taken action against Polish and Lithuanian diplomatic representations (see EUROPE 12574/23).
They should also look at longer-term relations with the country, both towards the authorities and the population, “reshaping the relationship in the light of the new situation”, according to a European source. The EU Council will therefore discuss what it considers necessary to do to return to a more favourable and beneficial relationship with Minsk and what the EU could develop in the event of transition, again according to this source.
Relations with Russia will also be on the ministerial table. The subject, which had been the subject of a quick debate at the meeting in Gymnich at the end of August due to lack of time, should enable the Ministers to hold an in-depth discussion on the state of relations, taking into account the five guiding principles of the relationship, the situation of civil society in the country, Russian actions in the neighbourhood and disinformation. According to a European source, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, would like to see what the Member States consider possible or not to do regarding Russia.
During the discussion, the French minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, and the German minister, Heiko Maas, are expected to present their counterparts with options for sanctioning personalities and an entity they consider responsible for the poisoning of political opponent Alexei Navalny (see EUROPE 12576/39). While the sanctions, currently being discussed in the EU Council working parties, will not be adopted on Monday because the time frame for legal acts is too short, a diplomatic source has expressed the view that a political agreement on such sanctions is nevertheless possible in the Council of the EU.
Ministers will also discuss with Mr Borrell and the EU Special Representative for the Belgrade/Pristina Dialogue, Miroslav Lajčák, the state of the talks and how to continue the dialogue and link it with US actions. After making progress on displaced persons and economic cooperation, discussions have become more complicated, in particular on the association of Serbian municipalities, as the Kosovo delegation has lost the mandate to negotiate.
A senior European official hoped that the discussion would be an opportunity for ministers to underline the importance they attach to dialogue and to show the unity of the EU, to discuss what the EU brings as a third party and to send a strong signal about the EU’s ability to act as an international actor in this region, in its neighbourhood. After his discussion with the EU Council, Mr Lajčák will visit Serbia and Kosovo.
Ministers will have a strategic debate on the EU’s relations withLatin America and the Caribbean, a region of the world with which Europeans believe they share a similar multilateralist vision in their relationship to the world.
The Foreign Affairs Council will not adopt “any specific conclusions” at the end of this exchange, but the High Representative of the Union considered that it was “the right time to initiate an in-depth and strategic discussion”, said a European diplomat on Friday 9 October. For one Member State diplomat, there is a willingness to better structure the partnership as it is done with Africa, because the EU has offensive and defensive interests to defend in the areas of health, environment and trade.
Mr Borrell will inform ministers of his latest contacts with Venezuelan political forces, as he did in the European Parliament on Wednesday (see EUROPE 12576/5). The EU is of the opinion that only a postponement of the parliamentary elections scheduled for 6 December would create the conditions for the holding of credible parliamentary elections. If the elections take place as planned, “there will obviously be problems to recognise legitimacy” of the elections, said the European diplomat.
The Council will conclude with a luncheon on multilateralism, a few days after the 75th UN General Assembly. The aim will be to provide guidelines on how the EU can better contribute to reinvigorating the multilateral system with the UN at its centre, including in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ministers could, among other things, quickly review the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and discuss how the EU could best contribute to the ceasefire and a genuine start to a political solution to this long-standing conflict, according to a senior diplomat.
Jean-Yves Le Drian is expected to brief his counterparts on the ongoing efforts of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, of which France is a member, together with the United States and Russia. On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron hoped that a truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan would be put in place the same day in the evening or on Saturday.
The situation in northern Cyprus, with the opening to the public of the seaside resort of Varosha, in contradiction with the relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions (see EUROPE 12576/23), could also be raised by the Cypriot Foreign Minister, Nikos Christodoulides, when the UNSC was due to discuss the issue on Friday 9 October in New York.
Finally, ministers are expected to adopt conclusions on Bosnia and Herzegovina and the EUFOR Althea mission (see EUROPE 12348/11), without a debate, as is the tradition every October. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant and Mathieu Bion)