Visa restrictions extended. Waiting for economic sanctions?

• 10.10.2011, 13:43

A decision to expand the list of Belarusian officials banned from entering the EU countries has been taken at a meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Luxemburg.

The decision has not been announced officially, but Agence France-Presse informs about it referring to own sources.

As the news agency reports, the EU foreign ministers agreed to impose travel bans on officials from Belarus and Iran. Names of the persons subject to sanctions have not been revealed. Besides, their assets in the EU will be frozen.

As BBC reports, Dutch foreign minister Uri Rosenthal said that Lukashenka must understand he should release all political prisoners. He warned tighter measures would be applied, including extending and toughening sanctions, if he did not learn a lesson from soft measures.

We remind that Polish PAP news agency reports on October 7 that the European Union plans to add 16 Belarusian officials to the list of those subject to sanctions. The decision can be taken on October 10 in Luxemburg, PAP said.

The EU Council imposed sanctions on the Belarusian authorities in January 2011 in response to a brutal suppression of a demonstration in Minsk after the presidential elections on December 19, 2010. The blacklist includes 192 Belarusian officials.

On September 21, the Lithuanian MFA initiated imposing a ban to enter Lithuania on 18 Belarusian civil servants and called on other EU countries to put them on national blacklists.