Opposition Lukashenko forces a plane to land in Belarus to arrest a dissident
"An act of State terrorism", "State hijacking", "Air piracy". "The scandalous and illegal behavior of the
Belarusian
regime
will have consequences." Never before has a neighboring country dared to endanger the lives of dozens of European citizens by forcing the diversion and landing of a plane with lies to arrest a political refugee and never before has the reaction of the complaint from the continental capitals been so rapid. The question that the Heads of State and Government of the 27 must resolve this afternoon is whether the words will really follow consequences or will everything remain in a sea of crocodile tears.
The leaders are summoned today and tomorrow in Brussels for a Meeting of the European Council in which foreign issues, Covid and Climate Change will be addressed. Monday's agenda included discussing relations with Russia, with the United Kingdom and what happened in Gaza, but the "piracy" of the Lukashenko regime, forcing the diversion of a Ryanair plane that covered the Vilnius-Dublin route to
detain a Exiled critical journalist and his girlfriend
have changed everything. Last night the President of the European Council,
Charles Michel, put
the Belarusian issue on the agenda and there are many governments, starting with the Lithuanian and Polish, demanding immediate sanctions. "The incident will not be without consequences," promised Michel.
The European Council faces a serious reputational issue.
What has been done from Minsk offers no doubt.
Some details have not been made public yet and he is not convincingly demonstrating that Russian intelligence officers were on the plane and were directly responsible for what happened, but there is little doubt about the choreography, the lies, the pressure from the local air force and the role of the secret services, whose behavior bordered on the crude.
The CEO of the airline himself said this publicly this morning.
"What happened is an attack not only on Lithuania, it is an act of state terrorism directed against the security of all Europeans and other countries," denounced the Lithuanian Prime Minister, Ingrida Simonyte.
Possible response measures
Therefore, that there must be a very hard answer seems clear and there are ideas on the table. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo suggested yesterday to ban the Belarusian state airline from using community airports. Some are calling for immediate enforcement of continental airlines from touching Minsk-controlled airspace. And voices cry out for months calling for much stronger sanctions against Lukashenko, his family and his top aides and business partners. But this requires unanimity, and it is not clear that it can be achieved, despite the dozens of communiqués, tweets and condemnations from practically all governments and parliaments in Europe.
Last September, after weeks sending unequivocal messages of support to the Belarusian opposition, harsh criticism of the regime in power and having already outlined a specific battery of sanctions against its leaders, the 27 were unable to make the decision to apply them .
On that occasion the cause was the veto of Cyprus, which had nothing to object in itself, but which used the Minsk issue to put pressure on what really concerned it, the lack of forcefulness in the face of Turkey.
The Government in Nicosia put it in simple terms: if there were no sanctions on Ankara they would veto the punishment of Lukashenko, leaving the EU with the shame in the air.
So it was.
Lukashenko's challenge
Today, that issue is not the main one, but all eyes are on Hungary, which has
been boycotting dozens of decisions in Foreign Policy for months and months,
which has vetoed different sanctions or statements of conviction and denunciation and which, once again, could continue in his line, because if there is someone minimally close to Lukashenko in the EU, or willing to take a portrait with him, it is precisely Viktor Orban.
The cost of doing nothing would be unaffordable. The US State Department issued a statement yesterday (by the way, with the same language that the EU is always criticized, speaking of "serious concern"), assuring that it was working with the Union authorities for a response consistent with the happened. The 27 must respond with sanctions and not just words. Demanding the release of
Roman Protasevich
and his girlfriend, as some heads of government did yesterday or the high representative
Josep Borrell
has repeated today,
is not enough. Asking for an in-depth investigation may be legally indispensable, but it is not enough either.
Lukashenko's defiance of his neighbors is so blatant that it reflects how little fear he has of the EU and the verbiage. There is, since 2012, a Council Decision that establishes the framework for sanctions against Minsk, contemplating arms embargoes or military assistance, the sale of any type of material that can be used for internal repression, the prohibition of travel to the EU of those who are on a black list or the freezing of assets, measures that are already applied as in Russia or Venezuela, to
punish a regime, but not the population.
But they are insufficient and have not been updated to respond to the abuses seen in 2020 and the official repression.
The first two measures are maintained, but the list of people who cannot travel is, right now, very short, four individuals considered responsible for the disappearance of four dissidents two decades ago. The list has been oscillating over time and became long, but now it is almost at a minimum, according to lawyer Tomasz Wlostowski recalls. "Defensive sanctions, to avoid future violations, but not offensive or punitive to weaken the regime", as they
do not target trade, there are no financial sanctions for the most important sectors
of the economy, nor do they punish public companies controlled by Lukashenko and his allies.
There are no oligarchs on target
, only two businessmen are on the lists: Aliaksandr Shakutsin and Mikalai Varabei.
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