The EU thinks about easing up sanctions against Belarus

It is reported that this proposal was supported by the foreign policy chief of the European Union Xavier Solana. He said that recently he had a lengthy telephone conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Sergey Martynov. Solana welcomed the release of the political prisoners and said that the European Union should “award” Minsk for this move.

“The Belarusian authorities recently made a very important decision with regard to the political prisoners. I had a long conversation with the Foreign Minister of Belarus. This was not the case for many years. We have met before two or three years ago. We shall continue with our dialogue. From our side we would also like to do something that could inspire Belarus for the moves it made, which, from my point of view, were correct”.

The EU Commissaire responsible for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the time has come to renew the high-level political dialogue with Belarus. She proposed to invite the Foreign Minister of Belarus to a meeting with the European Foreign Ministers to Brussels on 15 September and to reduce the visa costs for Belarusian citizens.

“We would also like that the upcoming elections backed up this already more open position of the Belarusian government and I believe we could work with them. I would also like to support my Polish colleague who said that we could reduce the visa costs”. The Polish media reports that Poland was the initiator of this discussion.

The Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stated that “the EU has to speed up the process of making this decision as the situation has changed”. He added that “there are no political prisoners any more and therefore we are now talking about how to hold a discussion regarding the elaboration of a road map of how to normalize the relations with Belarus”.

To support his position the Polish Minister recalled the example of Cuba. He said that the EU cancelled sanctions against Cuba, where there were over 300 political prisoners, while sanctions were retained against Belarus that has no more political prisoners. In the meantime, the Minister said that “in comparison with Cuba, the Belarusian regime, though being far from compliance with the European standards is a far more free regime where there are opportunities to conduct business, to travel and there are no political prisoners”.

The EU officials believe that one of the key moments with regard to the Belarusian situation is that whether Belarus would fall under the Russian influence regarding the issue of the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Foreign Minister of Estonia Urmas Paet said that “ Belarus has a real opportunity to move closer to Western Europe in case it supports the position of the EU and will not recognize these republics. However it should be clear that today Belarus is under strong pressure of Russia”, said the Estonian Minister.

In the course of the discussion of the Belarusian issue by the ministers it was admitted that the EU was also expecting Belarus to hold free and democratic Parliamentary elections.