Jacek Protasiewicz: “It’s very easy to ban entry to Europe for Lukashenka”

It is not hard to ban entry to united Europe for Alyaksandr Lukashenka and other high-ranking Belarusian officials. Such an opinion has been expressed by Polish deputy of the European Parliament Jacek Protasiewicz. Sanctions will be imposed again if real changes won’t take place in the country.

“In order to return the situation with sanctions against Belarusian officials to the state which was a month ago, a desire of only one state is needed to be expressed. And there is such a state already – the Netherlands. Last week I met representatives of this country and was convinced with that.

The Netherlands is not the only state which has raised a point about return of sanctions against Belarusian officials in case when the situation with human rights in Belarus won’t considerably improve over 6 (and now over 5) months,” the deputy of the European Parliament said in an interview to the European Radio for Belarus.

The question whether the European Union can reinstate sanctions against Belarusian officials was raised during the final session of the conference “Belarus: forming the space for changes” held on November 11-12 in Kyiv. Participants of the session expressed doubt that the united Europe has efficient mechanisms for stimulating further democratic mechanisms in Belarus.

As the Charter’97 press-centre has informed, on October 13 the Council of Europe adopted decision to lift visa sanctions against Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his officials. The chair of the Central election Committee Lidziya Yarmoshyna who is responsible for rigging election results, and four high-ranking officials suspected of involvement in assassinations of leaders of the Belarusian opposition. European politicians hope that in response to lifting sanctions Belarusian regime will start process of democratization in the country.