BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

20/12/2006

EU decides to impose mini-trade sanctions on Belarus

By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU on Wednesday (20 December) decided to impose ?400 million a year worth of trade sanctions on Belarus from mid-2007, in a decision unwelcome by pro-democracy workers in Belarus and its EU neighbour states.

The historic snub will see president Aleksander Luksahenko's country get kicked out of the EU's Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) on trade with tariffs imposed on wood and textile exports to the EU and with Burma the only other country ever to face GSP expulsion.

Minsk can still turn things around if it implements reforms on trade union rights such as freedom of assembly before the June 2007 deadline, with the European Commission set to report in March on any progress and with Belarus recently passing a pro-trade union bill.

If the sanctions are imposed, they could end up costing ordinary Belarusians 100,000 jobs and see Lukashenko-controlled media hammer on EU "hostility" at a time when Russia is also applying financial pressure on gas prices from the country's eastern side.

"We would never call on anybody to impose any sanctions. Because any sanctions first of all are harmful against ordinary people," Belarusian opposition leader Aleksander Milinkevich said while picking up a human rights prize in Strasbourg two weeks back.

Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece and Cyprus also objected to the EU sanctions move on the same grounds, but the team was too small to form a "blocking minority" after Italy defected to the pro-sanction side led by countries such as the UK and Sweden.

"This is not a good time for the adoption of such sanctions and we are not happy," a Lithuanian diplomat said. "Belarus has shown some movement and we should give them time to implement this new law. We should not be pressing too much when they already have this pressure from Russia."

Source:

http://euobserver.com/9/23156