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Unarmed women protesting against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime were beaten by Minsk security forces. Turkish ships drill for gas in Greek and Cypriot waters, escorted by the navy.
Two international crises that have dominated the news media in recent weeks. But do they have any connection?
Not really.
Until now. For the sanctions that the EU has been planning for more than 40 months against some 40 of Lukashenko’s minors, it does not appear to be a reality, as Cyprus only agrees to vote yes to the Union at the same time before imposing sanctions on Turkey.
The country reiterated its position when EU foreign ministers met on Monday, and the issue now falls on the table of heads of state and government at the next summit.
Presumably, Cyprus is now under great pressure behind the scenes in Brussels. But it seems unlikely that the knot will untie quickly.
An island nation with 0.17 percent of the population of the EU thus makes it impossible to mark an important country in our environment that tramples all that is called human rights.
It’s as if the Tranås municipal board vetoed Sweden’s foreign policy.
EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell was clearly frustrated after Monday’s foreign ministers meeting, saying that the “credibility of the Union is at stake” if sanctions against the Lukashenko regime are not materialize.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Edgar Rinkevics was even clearer in his criticism of the Cypriots:
“It is regrettable that we could not decide on sanctions because a member state is involved in ‘taking hostages’,” he wrote on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/edgarsrinkevics/status/1308017923626274816
But i really should no one should be surprised that the government of Cyprus acts as it does. The country is directly affected by the offensive actions of Turkey in the Mediterranean and really only has one clear line in its foreign policy: to face the great neighboring country.
That a country, although never that small, has a veto on foreign policy issues, is also part of the EU decision-making system. The Commission has repeatedly suggested, most recently during Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s keynote speech last week, that a qualified majority of Member States could decide on sanctions, for example.
But hardly a country wants to give up its veto right.
The result can be that both Lukashenko and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan avoid sanctions, or at least that decisions are properly prolonged.
Beyond the urgent issue of the Cyprus veto, there is great disagreement between the Member States on Belarus and Turkey.
Photo: Turkish Presidency
Germany’s most powerful country, Germany, really wants to avoid cracking down on Turkey as Angela Merkel defends Ankara’s will to stop the wave of refugees in Europe.
France on the other hand it has entered the conflict in the eastern Mediterranean, on the side of Greece and Cyprus, with all its might.
And with regard to Belarus, the Baltic countries, among others, want to go much further than the rest of the EU and, among other things, impose sanctions on Lukashenko personally.
But the decisions are long overdue. At the same time, the men of the Belarusian regime manage to move their money from Europe, and Erdogan may further consider how to expand his influence in the immediate area.
Then joined the new “geopolitical EU” launched by von der Leyen before his accession in December 2019. Rather than being a major player on the world stage, the Union appears ineffective and paralyzed even when it comes to crises in its immediate vicinity.
Read more:
The reluctant face of the revolution
Tensions rise in the Mediterranean: “Greece and Turkey heading for the abyss”
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