Fourth Sanctions Package Against Lukashenka Regime Is Nearing

Brussels demands the release of all political prisoners from the Belarusian authorities.

As representative of the European External Action Service Luc Devigne said, speaking on April 20 at the opening of the 9th session of the Eastern Partnership Parliamentary Assembly (Euronest), the session is being held online due to the coronavirus pandemic, despite the fact that the official Belarusian parliamentary delegation is not a member of Euronest, “the topic of Belarus is very important for all of us,” the website naviny.by reports.

“Unfortunately, we have to continue to regret that since the election fraud in August last year, the Belarusian authorities have followed exclusively the course of brutal repression against their citizens, and not dialogue,” he said. - We continue to firmly solidarize with the people of Belarus, we are pursuing a policy of zero tolerance in relation to repressions and impunity for those responsible. We hope that all political prisoners will be released immediately and unconditionally. We are also working on the next sanctions package now. ”

MEP Andrius Kubilius (Lithuania), chairing the meeting, said: “I hope that a solution will be found in relation to Belarus, where Lukashenka is harshly suppressing the protest movement. On the part of Lukashenka, as one of the Belarusian representatives noted, there is a legal Chernobyl in relation to the laws. In such conditions, we must actively oppose such actions of Lukashenka, so I call on everyone to show real leadership in resolving the Belarusian crisis.”

The first package of sanctions against Belarus was introduced by the European Union on October 2, 2020; subsequently, the list of persons subject to them was expanded with the second and third packages on November 6 and December 17, respectively. The difference between the third package is that in addition to personalities, it includes organizations.

The restrictive measures include a ban on travel to the European Union and the freezing of assets of persons from the sanctions list, which now includes 88 people, Lukashenka among them, as well as freezing of the assets of seven organizations.

In addition, individuals and legal entities - representatives of the EU are prohibited from directly or indirectly providing funds to persons on the sanctions list.

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia on March 25 introduced new national sanctions against 118 Belarusian employees of the internal affairs and justice authorities, as well as local authorities.