The EU’s credibility on foreign policy “is at stake” because of its failure to impose sanctions against Belarus, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, admitted Monday, adding that it was now his personal mission to get the punitive measures approved.
Borrell made the admission at a news conference on Monday following a meeting at which EU foreign ministers again failed to achieve the unanimity necessary to impose sanctions against Belarus and its strongman ruler, Alexander Lukashenko.
EU countries do all agree on the sanctions but Cyprus has refused to give its approval in an attempt to force other EU nations to support tougher sanctions against Turkey in a dispute over drilling for energy resources in the Mediterranean Sea.
At the news conference, Borrell gave a rambling, at times barely coherent, explanation of the EU’s views on Belarus, and likened the bloc’s refusal to recognize Lukashenko as the democratically elected president to its position regarding Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
Borrell said the ministers didn’t even attempt to reach unanimity at their meeting, knowing that Cyprus would block the decision, and he said the matter would have to be resolved by EU heads of state and government at a summit in Brussels later this week.
Speaking to some of the foreign ministers, Tikhanovskaya said sanctions were a key part of the campaign to bring Lukashenko to the table for talks.
The embarrassing deadlock over sanctions policy comes just days after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave her State of the European Union speech in which she urged national leaders to allow such decisions to be taken using qualified majority voting, and complained about some countries holding EU foreign policy hostage for selfish reasons.
The latest sanctions defeat was a cause of frustration for many officials, with one senior EU diplomat saying “this is a collective failure and embarrassment.”
However, not even Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius, one of the strongest advocates of a firm EU line over Belarus, said the latest failure paves the wave for qualified majority voting. “I’m very disappointed,” he told a group of reporters at the end of the meeting, but “in the European Union we have this consensus-based approach, which means that it takes more time but at the end of the day the decision is solid, overarching and everybody implements it.”
The failure to persuade Cyprus to lift is blockade was even more glaring because it occurred on the same day as Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was visiting Brussels. She urged the EU to be “brave” and impose sanctions on top officials from her country. She also asked the EU to recognize the opposition council that she created as the legitimate ruling authority.
Tikhanovskaya was the opposition candidate in last month’s presidential election, which triggered mass protests and widespread accusations of fraud after Lukashenko declared himself reelected for another term.
The foreign ministers were trying to reach agreement on a list of about 40 Belarusian officials that the EU wants to hit with restrictive measures such as travel bans and assets freezes for their role in violence against protesters and election fraud.
Cyprus stressed that it is not against Belarus sanctions but instead wants “both sanction regimes, on Belarus and Turkey, to move in parallel,” a Cypriot official said, calling for an agreement reached last month in Berlin by foreign ministers to be respected.
“It’s not a secret for anyone that we don’t have unanimity because one country has not participated in the consensus,” Borrell said at the news conference. “I think that everybody agrees on the need to adopt sanctions against Belarus, and I hope that at the next Foreign Affairs Council it will be possible. I will do whatever I can.”
He added: “It is becoming a personal commitment because I understand clearly that it depends very much on the credibility of the European Union and the forging of a foreign affairs policy, a common foreign affairs policy … If we are not able to do that, then I understand perfectly that our credibility is at stake. But be patient. I am sure that we will be able to do that after the political guidance of the next European Council.”
Yet the prospect of another delay highlights the EU’s failure to act quickly in response to world events.
Speaking to some of the foreign ministers, Tikhanovskaya said sanctions were a key part of the campaign to bring Lukashenko to the table for talks. “Of course sanctions are very important in our fight, because sanctions is part of [the] pressure that will force so-called authorities to start dialogue with us,” she said.
Hans Joachim von der Burchard contributed reporting.