After the introduction of sectoral sanctions by the European Union, Minsk suspended its membership in the Eastern Partnership initiative as well as in the Readmission Agreement with the EU. Belarus’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also recommended that the head of the EU Delegation to Belarus, Dirk Schuebel, return to Brussels for consultations, “to convey to its leadership the position of the Belarusian side on the unacceptability of pressure and sanctions.” On July 1, he left Minsk. The Readmission Agreement obliges both sides to accept illegal migrants from third countries, and it was adopted as a package deal along with a visa simplification agreement. Consequently, the EU could have acted to cancel the latter, which would raise the price of EU visas for Belarusians from $35 to $80. However, the EU shrewdly refrained from doing so.
OP-ED
Grigory Ioffe: Europe’s sanctions and Belarus
A Belarusian opposition flag is pictured as workers replace flags of the IIHF World Ice Hockey Championship near the Radisson Blu Latvia hotel in Riga, Latvia on May 25, 2021. Rene Fasel, President of IIHF wrote a letter to Martins Stakis, Mayor of Riga City Council, to ask for a change back to Belarusian official flag. Stakis told that the Belarusian opposition flag will stay and M. Fasel asked to take off IIHF Championship flags.
