EU moves to impose sanctions on Belarus

BRUSSELS • Backed by the US, European Union leaders moved to impose new sanctions on Belarus over the forced landing of a Ryanair Holdings jet and the arrest of a dissident journalist.

"It's piracy," German Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz said yesterday in a Bloomberg webinar. "I'm really, really angry about what happened and we cannot accept activities like this in Europe."

Calling the incident "a direct affront to international norms", US President Joe Biden welcomed the EU decision.

In a statement, he said he has asked advisers "to develop appropriate options to hold accountable those responsible".

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Monday and French President Emmanuel Macron endorsed a proposal to invite her and other opposition leaders to next month's Group of Seven summit.

EU leaders on Monday asked the European Commission to propose Belarusian officials who should be added to an existing blacklist and told their ministers to come up with broader measures to target businesses and entire sectors of the country's economy.

They also vowed to ban Belavia Belarusian Airlines from entering EU airspace and asked EU-based carriers to avoid flying over Belarus.

"This is an attack on democracy, this is an attack on freedom of expression and this is an attack on European sovereignty," Dr Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, told reporters.

European sanctions could take a month or more to take effect, however, while the United States administration did not indicate when it might take action.

Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has already withstood years of Western sanctions, thanks to support from Russia and China, deepening a crackdown that began after anti-government protests swept the country last summer. The measures followed the forced landing of a Ryanair jet in Minsk and the arrest of 26-year-old Roman Protasevich, who was on board the flight from Athens to Vilnius.

The EU called on President Lukashenko to release the journalist and on the International Civil Aviation Organisation to investigate the incident.

Protasevich appeared in a brief video released by Belarusian authorities on Monday night. Speaking with little expression, he said he was being treated "appropriately", is feeling well and has confessed to charges of fomenting mass unrest.

His allies said he appeared to have been beaten, but there were no clear signs of injuries. The video "makes for deeply distressing viewing", UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Twitter on Tuesday. "Belarus' actions will have consequences."

Accused of torturing prisoners, the Belarusian authorities have regularly released such "confession" videos from detainees in the months since the protests began last summer.

The crackdown showed no signs of letting up, with a court in Mogilev yesterday sentencing seven opposition activists and bloggers to sentences of up to seven years in prison each for organising mass unrest - the same charge to which Protasevich confessed in the video. The EU's tougher stance against Belarus coincided with a scheduled discussion on its close ally Russia.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called for measures to limit Russia's access to financial markets and international payment systems.

Dr Von der Leyen said that Russia has tried to weaken the EU and undermine member states through "sabotage, assassinations, divide-and-rule tactics, cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns".

"It is getting worse," she said.

BLOOMBERG