BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th November, 2020) Mass protests began in Belarus after the presidential election on August 9, in which, according to the official results, incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won in a landslide, securing himself a sixth consecutive term in office.
The opposition refused to recognize the results, claiming electoral fraud. Despite mass demonstrations, Lukashenko has refused to step down. The authorities were also criticized for a violent crackdown on protesters.
The European Council has condemned the presidential election for being "neither free nor fair" and refused to recognize their results.
The council reiterated its "full support for Belarus's sovereignty and independence and the democratic right of the Belarusian people to elect their president through new, free and fair elections, without external interference."
In addition, the council strongly condemned the violence employed by the Belarusian authorities against protesters and called for the release of all arbitrarily detained persons, including political prisoners.
The EU has imposed sanctions on 40 Belarusian officials in the first wave of punitive measures that came into force in early October. Meanwhile, the Committee of Permanent Representatives in the European Union (Coreper) has agreed on a new list of Belarusian officials that will become the target of individual sanctions. According to European media outlets, as many as 15 officials, including Lukashenko, may be hit in the next round of sanctions.
The sanctions envision freezing of assets and travel bans. EU diplomats said Brussels was holding off targeting Lukashenko and other top officials as a pressure tactic to encourage negotiations with the opposition and new elections.
The EU's sanctions came late, in early October, because the first attempt to compile such a list was blocked by Cyprus, which demanded a coherent position on Turkish energy prospecting in the eastern Mediterranean, while Canada and the United Kingdom have already imposted their own measures against Belarus in September.
The European Union leaders ended the diplomatic standoff with Cyprus by agreeing to send at the same time a tough message to Turkey. The case demonstrated that it is difficult for the bloc to agree on any issue.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the Belarus sanctions agreement and the EU's stance on Turkey as a "major progress."
BELARUSIAN OPPOSITION GETS SAKHAROV PRICE
The Belarusian opposition was awarded the 2020 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The opposition in Belarus was jointly nominated by different political groups of the European Parliament, including the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), the European People's Party (EPP) and others.
"It is an honour to announce that the women and men of the democratic opposition in #Belarus are the 2020 #SakharovPrize laureates. They have on their side something that brute force can never defeat: the truth. Do not give up on your fight. We are by your side," President of the European Parliament David Sassoli said.
Former Belarusian presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has thanked the European Parliament for awarding the prize, describing it as an achievement of all protesting Belarusians.
EFFECTIVENESS OF EU SANCTIONS ARE QUESTIONABLE
According to Thierry Mariani, a French lawmaker in the European Parliament from the right-wing National Front party, the EU sanctions against Belarus are just symbolic.
"The sanctions are above all symbolic, because these 40 individuals, including 2 ministers, do not travel to the West anyway and don't have accounts in Western banks; so they very probably do not care about these sanctions and shrug them off. The EU has practically no way to pressure president Lukashenko into a negotiation; individual sanctions and a few loans suspended, this is not enough to make a difference," Mariani told Sputnik.
Even including Lukashenko in the sanctions list and awarding the opposition with Sakharov price does not envision exerting pressure on Minsk, according to the lawmaker.
"What this means, even with Lukashenko included in the sanctions, and with the Sakharov prize being given to the Belarus opposition by the main traditional parties, including the conservatives in the European parliament, it very much looks like a discreet abandonment of the opposition to its lot, like a government in exile, and the abandonment of any hope of exerting an influence on Belarus," Mariani said.
The lawmaker added that the EU's message to Moscow is also "ineffective and symbolic" even though the bloc knows that cooperation between Russia and Belarus is very close and will very probably increase in the near future.�
According to Pietro Fiocchi, a member of the European Parliament for the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, awarding the Sakharov Prize to the Belarusian opposition also will not "make a difference."
"We gave the Sakharov prize to the opposition but of course we realize that it will not make a difference, and that - as days and weeks are passing - Aleksander Lukashenko strongly anchors himself in power for another 4 or 5 years. But at least this prize contributes to the international rejection of the Belarussian regime. Lukashenko will not dare organize an election again or designate a successor," Fiocchi said.
Fiocchi added that Lukashenko is getting more and more isolated as a number of European countries have recalled their ambassadors from Minsk.
"This isolation will be heavier as months and years go by," the lawmaker concluded.
In a resolution in mid-September, the European parliament repeated a warning to Russia in a paragraph that concerns Moscow.
"[European Parliament] condemns the hybrid interference of the Russian Federation in Belarus, notably delegating so-called media experts to the Belarusian state media and advisors to the military and law enforcement agencies, and calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to halt any covert or overt interference in the internal processes of Belarus," the parliament said.
The EU institution also called on Moscow to "respect international law and the sovereignty of Belarus" and warned that Lukashenko had no legitimacy to enter into any contractual relations on behalf of Belarus, including with Russian authorities."
Nonetheless, the resolution refrains from cutting all bridges with Lukashenko's government or with Moscow, somehow recognizing that Belarus has always been very close to Russia.
