EU is preparing to impose sanctions against 31 Belarusian official

The European Union is preparing to impose sanctions against 31 representatives of the Belarusian authorities in connection with the alleged falsifications in the presidential election on August 9 and violence against demonstrators. This was reported by Reuters with reference to sources.

Initially, there were 14 people on the list, but at the insistence of a number of countries another 17 names were added to it. There is still no president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, but the German Foreign Ministry representative Christopher Burger on Monday said that consultations on the inclusion of Lukashenko were ongoing on the sanctions list. Sanctions against the current president are achieved by the Baltic countries, which previously agreed on their own sanctions list in which Lukashenko is.

It is expected that sanctions can be approved by the EU Foreign Minister on September 21. However, this has not yet been guaranteed, since Greece and Cyprus linze the introduction of sanctions against Belarus with the expansion of sanctions against Turkey in connection with its exploration work on the controversial shelf in the Mediterranean Sea. To introduce sanctions, the consensus of all 27 countries of the European Union should be the consensus.

The EU countries did not recognize the results of the elections on August 9, at which, according to official figures, Lukashenko won. At the same time, representatives of a number of countries, including Germany, argued that sanctions should not be too tough so as not to close the possible paths of dialogue with the official Minsk.