On Russia, the EU should learn from the Baltics

When is the EU going to take action against Belarus, the Soviet dictatorship crumbling away on its eastern edge? Dominic Raab has announced that the UK will unilaterally impose ‘Magnitsky-like’ sanctions against Belarussian officials, blocking those complicit in the mass incarceration of protesters from operating within the UK. Meanwhile, at a Foreign Affairs Council meeting last month, Cyprus chose to veto proposed EU sanctions against Belarus. The move will further weaken a ‘non-binding’ resolution by the bloc which condemned president Alexander Lukashenko while refusing to recognise the result of August’s rigged election.

The European Parliament continues to falter in taking decisive, multilateral action against a dissident regime. Cyprus’s decision to veto the sanctions was driven by its broader dealings with Russia. Not for nothing is Cyprus known as ‘Moscow on the Med’ — a growing web of political and economic interests have tied this island nation to Moscow. It sends a clear message to reliant countries like Cyprus when the Kremlin condemns the EU’s ‘attempts to influence’ Belarus through ‘illegal unilateral sanctions’.