EU foreign ministers agree to expand Belarus sanctions

EU foreign ministers today agreed to widen the bloc's sanctions against Belarus to target individuals and entities involved in aiding the Lukashenko government by facilitating the "illegal crossing of the EU's external borders" by migrants.

With thousands stranded along Belarus' border with Poland and Lithuania, the widened sanctions will allow the EU to target officials, travel agencies and airlines involved in trafficking migrants via Minsk to the border region. The EU regulation will be published tomorrow and will not add any new names of officials or entitities as "there's a whole procedure for that", an EU official said.

There was no detailed discussion between EU foreign ministers today about the technicalities of Belarus sanctions and no specific mention of economic sanctions either, the official said. But ministers have been discussing how "hard economic sanctions are unavoidable", according to German foreign minister Heiko Maas. Last week, Maas called for stronger sanctions against Belarus including further measures against the country's fertilizer industry.

Today, Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called for a no-fly zone for aircraft that can "potentially" fly refugees to Minsk. "Our interest is to see Minsk and other [Belarus] airports under a no-fly zone for commercial airlines up until the point we're sure the crisis is over," said Landsbergis, adding that he wants further sanctions to include not just Belarusian airports and airlines but also ground-service companies in the country.

Belarus' deputy prime minister Yuri Nazarov told the country's parliament last month that the sanctions "situation" will last for a long time. He estimated that the measures have resulted in $80mn of losses in the petrochemical sector alone.

By Dafydd ab Iago