Even the personal meeting of the leader of the Belarusian opposition, Sviatlana Cichanouska, with the foreign ministers of the European Union today did not help the member states to approve the prepared sanctions against forty officials of the regime of the authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko. Despite pressure, especially from the Baltic States or calls from MEPs and NGOs, ministers did not persuade Cyprus to agree to sanctions.
In return, Cyprus demands a consensus on a tougher approach to Turkish mining on its shores, which many countries reject.
According to Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček, there is still a chance of sanctions during the EU summit starting on Thursday.
“Although there is a clear will to adopt sanctions, we have not been able to reach the required unanimity,” EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell told reporters after the meeting. The Spanish politician acknowledged that the inability to agree on the punishment of those responsible for Belarus’s electoral manipulation and the violent repression of opposition protests undermined the EU’s credibility.
Prior to the talks, Cypriot Minister Nikos Christodulidis said his country supported the sanctions, but did not want the union to double-measure and punish, in addition to human rights violations in Belarus, violations of the territorial sovereignty of its member states. According to diplomats, Cyprus is demanding that the EU extend the current framework of sanctions for Turkish exploratory mining off the Cypriot coast by several individuals and entities. However, there is no clear agreement among EU countries on the sensitive issue of relations with a NATO partner country.
“I believe that it is only a delay of a few days,” Petříček told Czech journalists, according to which the sanctions could be approved by EU leaders at the upcoming summit. His main topic should be relations with Turkey. The Czech minister also supported the idea of expanding the list of punished persons to include Lukashenko, which was proposed today by, among others, his German colleague Heiko Maas.
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