EU has Belarus state firms in sanctions crosshairs

EU trade with Belarus state-owned firms may be subject to sanctions following agreement in principle by EU leaders. Sanctions could hit state-owned or state-controlled fertilizer, steel, rail, refinery or petrochemical firms, and commodity trading including biomass and forestry that takes place on the state-owned Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange.

EU leaders yesterday agreed in principle to prepare "further targeted economic" sanctions. An EU official who followed the leaders' discussions on Belarus today confirmed that targeting state-owned or state-controlled enterprises "most definitely is the general sense of the sanctions".

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said today that he has never experienced EU leaders being so rapid in agreeing sanctions. Rutte was one of the clearest advocates for targeting state-owned firms so as to hit Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko.

"This hits the personal bank accounts of the leaders," said Rutte. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also called for sanctions against "businesses and economic entities financing the regime".

But a political agreement between EU leaders to sanction Belarus' state-owned entities is likely to take longer to be worked out and published in the bloc's official journal. Finalisation of economic sanctions requires unanimity among the EU's 27 member states, and may be delayed by individual countries, notably Hungary or others. Last year, Cyprus and Greece held up publication of sanctions against Belarus, Lukashenko and his son and national security adviser Viktor Lukashenko, for several months. The Netherlands' Rutte does not expect Hungary to hold up adoption of measures, but Budapest has previously called for dropping sanctions against Belarus.

Faster implementation is probable of a ban on Belarus airlines from EU airspace and airports. Bloc leaders called for EU-based carriers to avoid overflight of Belarus. Asset freezes and visa bans are likely to come in quickly for officials held responsible for the forced redirecting, to Minsk, of a Ryanair passenger flight from Athens to Vilnius and the detention of opposition journalist Roman Protasevich and others.

By Dafydd ab Iago