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May 27, 2021 The European Union is preparing new sanctions against Belarus following the hijacking of an Athens-Vilnius scheduled flight to Minsk to arrest political dissident journalist Roman Protasevich on board the plane. These are sanctions aimed at targeting potash exports, the oil and financial sectors.



This is what emerged from the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Lisbon, where High Representative Josep Borrell reiterated: "The hijacking of a plane and the detention of two passengers is completely unacceptable and we will begin to discuss the implementation of economic and sectoral sanctions ".



"The key word - echoed Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn - is potassium chloride. We know that Belarus produces a lot of it, it is one of the largest global suppliers and I think it would damage Alexander Lukashenko a lot if we could do something about it. this sector".



For his part, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis spoke of the possibility of hitting the oil sector, while his German colleague Heiko Maas of hitting financial transactions.



"We must move quickly with the sanctions against Belarus, we have already started the procedure". Borrell again stated. "The leader of the Belarus opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, will participate in the next Foreign Affairs Council in June," he added.