The EU lays the legal foundations to multiply the sanctions against Belarus

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The foreign ministers of the European Union approved this Monday, unanimously and without much discussion, expanding the legal framework to multiply the sanctions against the Alexander Lukashenko regime for the "hybrid attack" that it has orchestrated by pushing thousands of people against community borders. Asylum seekers brought expressly and directly from places like Iraq or Afghanistan. The new punitive measures will be "against all persons or entities that collaborate in irregular entries", but they have not yet been defined or outlined. The ministers have given political support and the technical services of the institutions will polish them in the coming weeks

at a political or technical level.

They will not be able to enter the community space and their assets, if they have them, would be frozen.

"Today's decision reflects the determination of the European Union

We reject this inhumane and illegal practice. At the same time, we continue to underline the unacceptable repression by the regime against its own population in the country, and we will respond accordingly ", assures the high representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell.

What is happening on the Belarusian border is difficult to define. They all speak of crisis, attack, provocation and manipulation, but their nature is changeable and problematic.

And although it is very serious in terms of international relations and precedents, it is not in numbers. Just a few group steps have helped many of the countries of origin and transit to immediately stop travel and several airlines have cut service. The situation is not controlled, but almost.

and of dimensions that have never lost control or made management logistically impossible.

What is happening is a political problem from many different perspectives. It is because a government is paying for the trip and giving visas to thousands of people to

Not an unprecedented attack, but an unusual one. That said, it is not, unlike what has happened many times since 2015, an internal problem for the EU, because everyone has closed ranks with Warsaw, despite the fact that just a few weeks ago the Polish government clashed with Brussels with force and it threatened all kinds of actions and called into question the basic principles of the Union. But it is a very deep challenge for those same values.

Lukashenko's motivation is clear, the cruelty of the game for the lives of thousands of people used as a throwing weapon. Even the complicity of Moscow, but that does not mean that many of those who arrive in this artificial way are asylum seekers with very real situations and probably with the right to stay.

Finally, and this is a growing concern, shared by Washington and with implications that have changed the board for decades, is the situation in Ukraine. There is a part of the international and intelligence community that believes that Vladimir Putin is using Lukashenko, as well as the gas crisis, to distract his neighbors as he prepares movements on the Ukrainian border. This is what the country's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told European colleagues on Monday. There are troop movements, sophisticated infrastructures, signals that in his opinion suggest actions. Something so direct seems implausible, but it was also implausible in 2014 that Crimea was back under the control of the Kremlin.

"If Secretary of State Blinken has pointed to the possibility, he must have good reasons," said the Spaniard about the US suspicions and alerts. "It is possible", Josep Borrell pointed out more specifically when asked if what is happening in Russia's two neighboring countries is interconnected. "I am not in the talks between Putin and Lukashenko ... but it

even if Russia says it has nothing to do with it."

In recent years the EU has imposed sanctions on 166 individuals and 15 Belarusian entities, including the dictator and his son. More people will be added, but

Lithuania has asked, for example,

an idea that was already considered and discarded last summer after the forced landing of a plane to arrest an opponent over the community sky. Minsk has threatened in recent days to reply by interfering with the arrival of gas to the continent, but has not taken any steps.

The European Commission has the commitment of various airlines and governments to curb irregular arrivals.

Vice President Margaritis Schinas has been traveling for days in the Middle East to pressure partners and neighbors and the response is being positive, forcing Minsk to seek alternative routes, some through Russia directly to continue bringing in asylum seekers.

Simultaneously, the state operator, Belavia, has announced that it will stop accepting certain travelers, and

which has been interpreted as a tepid de-escalation message in Brussels.

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Know more

• Russia

• Josep Borrell

• Lithuania

• European Comission

• Vladimir Putin

• Ukraine

• Europe

• Afghanistan

• Iraq

• Alexander Lukashenko

• Belarus

• European Union

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