Robin Emmott, Philip Blenkinsop

LUXEMBOURG -The European Union’s foreign ministers discussed Monday new economic sanctions against Belarus, which included airlines. This was to stop the deliberate Minsk strategy to allow thousands of migrants to cross the border and fly into Belarus.

Latvia made the first mention of the sanctions plan Monday, in Luxembourg. This was not on the EU’s original agenda. Diplomats speculate that it may have been in response to Belarus’ decision at the weekend to expel France from its embassy.

France claimed Monday its ambassador was expelled from Belarus by the authorities. He failed to submit credentials to President Alexander Lukashenko who, according to EU rules, is not recognised as an legitimate head.

After the June economic sanctions imposed upon Belarus due to Lukashenko’s crackdown against protesters in his dispute re-election campaign in August 2020, a tightening would be made on Belarus’s economy. Protesters claim that the election was fraudulent, but he refutes this assertion.

Many EU countries now accuse Lukashenko also of flying illegal migrants from Iran, Iraq and Africa into the EU in order to disrupt the bloc.

Lukashenko denied this, and blamed the West after migrants left behind at the Belarusian/Polish border.

We need to implement stricter sanctions… “It means to put so called tourism companies that organize flights (under sanction),” Edgars Rinkevics from Latvia said when he arrived in Luxembourg for a meeting of his EU counterparts.

Belavia, the Belarusian state airline that is already exempted from EU airspace, should be fully sanctioned, he stated.

Belavia leases aircraft from EU countries. Especially Ireland. However, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney stated that he is open to future agreements and was wary of any measures that could interfere with current leases.

According to him, “While Ireland is keen to intensify sanctions and pressure against the Belarusian regime,” he said to reporters in Luxembourg.

EU officials are also working on a new list of sanctions for Belarusian people. These could include the Foreign Minister, who is accused of being part of the EU’s campaign to encourage illegal migration.

NEW FLIGHTS, NEW PROMISES

The increase in illegal Belarusian border crossings has been reported by Latvia, Lithuania and Poland since August. Minsk is accused of using sub-Saharan Africa and Iraqi travel agents to provide visas to Belarusian migrants and then transport them to the EU frontier.

Gabrielius Landsbergis from Lithuania, the Foreign Minister, said that the flow of migrants has not slowed down even though the EU managed to stop the departures for Iraq and Jordan.

He said, “They’re using new flights from many countries in the Middle East and North Africa to deceive people into thinking they can get easy access to the European Union.”

Heiko Maas, German Foreign Minister, stated that after the EU meeting further discussions would take place in the coming days.

“We will place more pressure upon the airlines that transport people from different places to Minsk with the support and the ruler there to the border,” he stated.