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EU Suspends Most Belarus Sanctions For Four Months

October 29, 2015
by Rikard Jozwiak

BRUSSELS -- The European Union has cited 'improving relations' in deciding to formally suspend most sanctions against Belarus for four months.

An EU statement on October 29 said 'this decision was taken in response to the release of all Belarusian political prisoners on 22 August and in the context of improving EU-Belarus relations.'

EU ambassadors are expected to suspend asset freezes and visa bans on 170 out of 174 blacklisted Belarusians and also remove restrictive measures against the 14 companies remaining on the blacklist.

Sanctions will remain in place for four people involved in 'unresolved disappearances in Belarus' in 1999-2000.

The EU arms embargo against Minsk will also remain in place.

'We expect that this decision will lead to a swift and actual cancellation of all the sanctions and a normalization of the relations between Belarus and the European Union," Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dzmitry Mironchik said. "This meets the interests of all the parties.'

The EU will review progress within Belarus during the four-month suspension of the sanctions in order to decide whether to prolong the sanctions in case new human rights abuses are committed by the regime of Alyksandr Lukashenka.

The sanctions were due to expire on October 31.

The sanction suspension and extension will be published in the EU's official journal on October 30 and come into force one day later.

It is possible, however, that the sanctions will be lifted altogether at the beginning of March as all 28 EU member states must agree to prolong them, something EU sources told RFE/RL is currently unlikely.

​​Lukashenka, the authoritarian president of Belarus who has been in office 1993, won a fifth term earlier this month with some 83 percent of the vote in an election that was judged by Western monitors to be neither free nor fair.

The EU had long demanded that Lukashenka release the political prisoners as a precondition for the easing of sanctions.

'The EU has reacted to this progress, encouraging further positive developments that would lead to an improvement of EU-Belarus relations,' the statement said.

It added that the EU will 'continue to closely monitor the situation of democracy and human rights in Belarus.'

The sanctions were first imposed in the wake of the crackdown that followed the purportedly rigged Belarusian presidential election in December 2010.

But relations between Brussels and Minsk have improved considerably this year.

The EU welcomed Belarus's decision in August to release the political prisoners and has expressed gratitude to Lukashenka for facilitating talks with Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

EU and Belarusian officials did earlier this year also initiate a human rights dialogue even though the talks haven't yet yielded any concrete results.

The two sides are also in the final stages of agreeing to a visa facilitation deal which would make it easier and cheaper for Belarusians to travel to the EU's Schengen zone.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/eu-belarus- sanctions-suspended-four-months/27333874.html

Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.