The European Union will strengthen sanctions against the President of Belarus if he refuses to dialogue with the opposition. This was stated by Foreign Minister of Germany Heiko Maas on Friday following the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE states.
“The proposals are on the table. Now we do not have the impression that Minsk will react to them, so in the EU we will continue the path that we once embarked on, namely, if in the long term they will refuse proposals for dialogue, it will be only lead to the fact that in Brussels we will have to increase the sanctions pressure on Lukashenko”, – Maas said.
In early August, presidential elections were held in Belarus. According to the CEC, incumbent head Alexander Lukashenko won the presidential race, receiving more than 80% of the vote. Housewife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya took the second place with 10.12% of the votes.
After summing up the election results, mass protests began in Belarus, which continue to this day. Tikhanovskaya herself, because of whose calls people go out into the street, prudently fled to Lithuania.
At the moment, the European Union has introduced two blocks of sanctions, which affected more than fifty representatives of the country’s leadership, including the head of state, Alexander Lukashenko. All of them were banned from entering the EU, and their accounts, if found in European banks, will be frozen.