Sanctions against Belarus and beyond: what must they be to change something?

The sanctions will affect key sectors of the Belarusian economy, including exports of potash fertilizers, the tobacco sector, oil and petrochemicals.

Restrictions on the export of weapons and equipment that could be used to crack down on activists should also be tightened. Restrictions are also foreseen for the financial sector.

In addition, the EU ministers already approved the inclusion of more than 80 Belarusian natural and legal persons on the same Monday. Asset freeze and visa ban for individuals and entities you have already written about companies that are new to the list 15 minutes.

In fact, the sanctions are more extensive and EU diplomats hope they will force Mr Lukashenko to soften both the tone and the repression.

But Christian von Soest, an analyst at the German Institute for Local and World Studies, cautions against waiting too long, as the toughest sanctions will certainly not fall so easily on 66-year-old Lukashenko: “

The warm-up period didn’t last long

According to Deutsche Welle, the case of Belarus shows how complicated sanctions are as a tool.

The EU has been imposing restrictions on the Minsk regime since it became an autocratic regime, shortly after Lukashenko’s first presidential elections in 1994. The authorities began to persecute political opponents, independent media, and began to suppress protests.

The Community and the United States have responded with sanctions that have been more active or passive for some 20 years. In 2004, the United States passed a law on democracy in Belarus, allowing Washington to support Belarusian civil society and punish the ruling elite.

In 2006, then-US President George W. Bush also ordered a freeze on all assets held by US Lukashenko and his closest trustees.

The EU has been imposing restrictions on the Minsk regime since it became an autocratic regime.

That same year, the EU did the same, banning Lukashenko and several other members of the regime from entering the Community.

In 2011, an arms embargo was also announced. It is true that in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine, the EU decided to try to resume relations with the Lukashenko regime, already thinking about the Community’s security interests.

The Belarusian capital, Minsk, has become a major hub for diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, and in 2016 the EU lifted almost all sanctions on the country, leaving only an arms embargo.

Of course, it is now clear that this warming period came to an end last year: the protests that followed the rigged presidential elections were brutally suppressed, so the EU has renewed its sanctions and is now expanding them.

A new impetus for tougher Western action was the landing of a Ryanair airliner flying from Athens to Vilnius organized by the Minsk regime in the country’s capital. Opposition activist and journalist Roman Protasevičius was immediately arrested in Minsk.

Since then, the airspace of Belarusian aircraft has been closed to EU countries. It is true that this measure affects the entire people of Belarus, not just the regime.

Dviašmenis kalavijas

“But every extension of the sanctions is a double-edged sword,” says von Soest. “If more economic sanctions are passed, society will suffer.”

That is exactly what happened in Iraq in the 1990s, when the United Nations Security Council imposed an economic embargo on the country.

Dictator Saddam Hussein remained in power until 2003, when a US-led coalition invaded Iraq, at a time when millions of Iraqis suffered from poverty, hunger, cholera and typhoid epidemics.

Due to such anomalies, the international community at that time had to recognize that sanctions should be limited to decision-makers in the regime or to specific sectors of the economy.

Today, the usual sanctions are the prohibition to enter a certain territory, the freezing of accounts and other assets. So far, these restrictions have also applied to the Lukashenko regime; Broader sanctions, such as the disconnection of the SWIFT international payment system, are already affecting the economy as a whole.

Sanctions should be limited to decision-makers in the regime or to specific sectors of the economy.

On the other hand, the EU representatives do not hide the fact that this is the goal. The Community’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Monday: “We are determined to have a very severe impact on the Belarusian economy.”

“We attach great importance to the sector sanctions agreement, which we expect this week. This is a sanction for the regime, not for the people of Belarus. The Kremlin is financing Lukashenko’s debts and losses.

Therefore, the price that the President of Belarus will pay will also be paid by Vladimir Putin, “said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.

Not all penalties are the same

An analysis of Deutsche Welle’s global sanctions since 1995 shows that 36% of travel insurance cases have been successful. In other words, the sanctioned party made some concessions.

Financial penalties, both specific and broader, were 41 percent successful. cases. Even more effective cancellations or freezes of military cooperation: 46 percent. cases.

The greatest effect has been achieved through sanctions, which are otherwise relatively rare: flight bans, closure of seaports, severance of diplomatic relations, or expulsion of international organizations.

How are sanctions measured? According to the researchers, a clear sign of success – a concrete change in the behavior of the criminal side – the release of the prisoners, the start of a ceasefire or negotiations. The best example is the sanctions against the former apartheid regime in South Africa.

It is true that Clara Portela, an expert at the EU Institute for Security Studies, emphasizes: “The idea of ​​announcing sanctions to change the behavior of the targets is not always correct. It is not always true that sanctions actually lead to such a change. “

Suppose that, with regard to Belarus, Europeans and Americans do not openly state that they are seeking a change of government. But isn’t that what the Western allies want?

“Before evaluating whether sanctions work or not, it is first necessary to clarify what is expected of them. What are the objectives of the sanctions? In this case, we receive a minimal amount of information from the initiators of the sanctions, ”says C. Portela.

If you have a back, it is more difficult to affect

Mr. von Seost is convinced that “sanctions are an important sign of international standards”. In the specific case of Belarus, they make it clear that Lukashenko is considered a villain and warn other autocrats.

Sanctions are also a sign of repressed opposition, they are also aimed at defending human rights.

Katrin Kamin, an analyst at the World Economic Institute in Kiel, on the other hand, notes that it is very difficult to accurately assess and monitor the effects of sanctions: “But then one has to ask, what would be an alternative to sanctions and would it already be cash? If there are more than 30% successful sanctions, it seems quite effective to me. “

In the case of Belarus, the release of political prisoners could be an important first step, although data shows that the aggressive autocracy (and the Minsk regime is rapidly losing any sign of restraint) is less afraid of sanctions.

All experts interviewed by Deutsche Welle emphasized that unity was extremely important when announcing the sanctions: the larger states or confederations support the restrictions, the more difficult it is for the sanctioned party to mitigate the consequences of these attacks.

But if even one state decides not to participate in the lockdown, the pressure immediately subsides. And the main ally of the Minsk regime is the Kremlin. The position of Russia, not the European and American sanctions, seems to be able to decide the fate of Lukashenko.