EU lifts sanctions against Lukashenko and his team

The European Union has lifted most of the sanctions against Belarus, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Feb 15.

The EU has removed Belorussian President Alexander Lukashenko, 169 people and 3 companies from its sanction list. The visa and economic sanctions against a number of Belorussian army and police officials suspected of being privy to the disappearance of some oppositionists are still in force.

As EADaily reported earlier, in Oct 2015 the EU suspended its sanctions for four months. In Nov 2015 Steinmeier met with his Belorussian counterpart and said that it was a credit of trust. Before that Lukashenko had taken a number of steps to reconcile with the West and many of the steps were openly anti-Russian. Particularly, he refused to host a Russian air base and was one of the first post-Soviet leaders to recognize and to support the Kiev regime. Belarus has also refrained from de jure recognizing Crimea’s reunification with Russia.