BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

14/10/2008

EU lifts travel ban on Belarus's Lukashenko

Lukashenko ... is now free to travel into and around the EU

EU foreign ministers have suspended travel bans on Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and several of his associates, the French EU presidency said, in a move to encourage democracy.

Forty-one Belarussian figures, including the hardline president, were banned from entering the EU and had their assets frozen after the 2006 presidential election which was judged not to comply with international norms.

Now only four figures deemed responsible for disappearances in the country in 1999-2000, as well as Belarussian electoral commission head Lydia Yermoshina, remain on the travel ban list, following the decision by EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg.

Lukashenko - in power since 1994 and dubbed "the last dictator in Europe" - is one of those newly authorised to travel into and around the European Union, an EU presidency spokeswoman stressed.

However while most of the visa bans were suspended for six months, the asset freeze remains in place for all 41, she added.

The suspension of the travel bans will be re-examined in six months to see if there has been any movement towards democracy in the former Soviet republic.

Earlier, during a meeting with Belarus's Foreign Minister Serge Martynov, on the sidelines of the ministers' main meeting, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said democratic developments there must be encouraged.

"We should now not delay our response any longer as I think I fear that we otherwise forego a possibility to have political leverage," she told reporters after the talks. "In order to encourage further democratic development in Belarus, I would be in favour of a suspension of the most important part of the travel ban, because we want to show that progress is being rewarded and we want to have this more pragmatic concrete approach."

Belarus "is faced with a historic choice. Either it takes the necessary steps towards democracy and independence, or it resigns itself to stagnation", the EU commissioner added.

As they arrived for the Luxembourg talks, most of the ministers stressed the improvements made by the regime despite legislative elections in Belarus last month which Western observers slammed as non-democratic.

"I think that the European report on the elections expressed some pretty clear concerns," said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. "But equally it is also important that we continue to recognise the steps that have been made, limited in some ways but not insignificant in others."

On the plus side was the fact that the Belarus government has recently freed its remaining political prisoners and invited the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to observe the legislative elections.

Loyalists of the autocratic Lukashenko won every seat in September's parliamentary polls which were also widely condemned by the US government and Western observers.

Of all the 27 EU nations, Poland and Lithuania, neighbours of Belarus and particularly anti-Moscow, have been pushing the hardest to get the sanctions lifted.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has made a comparison with Cuba, noting that the EU has lifted its sanctions there despite the fact that Havana is still holding political prisoners. - AFP

Source:

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=247859&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21

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