EU lifts sanctions from Aquadiv and Sport-Pari

European sanctions against two Belarusian firms and former editor-in-chief of Savetskaya Belorussia newspaper have been lifted.

The information was spread by the EU official service EUR-Lex.

The list of Belarusian officials, judges and journalists under a visa ban has been reduced by one person. The document reads that all restrictions on Hanna Shchadryna, a former deputy editor-in-chief of Savetskaya Belorussia newspaper, were lifted.

Sanctions were also lifted from two Belarusian companies – Aquadiv and Sport-Pari.

“The Council considers that one person and two entities should be removed from the list of persons and entities subject to restrictive measures,” the document says.

The decision was taken on May 29.

Vladimir Peftiyev, Lukashenka's “banker”, owns Malinovschisnenski distillery  Akvadiv via subsidiaries. The company was hit by the EU restrictive measures in last March.

Lukashenka's sporting club headed by his son Dmitry is a co-founder of Sport-Pari firm. Sanctions against the company were slapped on June 20, 2011.

Having been put on the blacklist, Shchadryna, with the help of Lukashenka's friend oligarch Vladimir Peftiyev, applied to a court seeking to remove her name from the list.

The European Union banned 188 Belarusian officials, including Lukashenka, from entering 27 EU members states in January 2011. The list was later extended. The sanctions were introduced due to the brutal dispersal of the opposition rally on December 19, 2010, and the human rights situation in Belarus.