Elections in Belarus – EU explains consequences of Lukashenka’s non-recognition of legitimacy – world news – UNIAN

Borrell explained what the non-recognition of Lukashenka’s legitimacy will lead to / photo REUTERS

Failure to recognize Alexander Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus will in practice lead to a decline in the level of relations with the European Union.

This was stated by the vice president of the European Commission, high representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, in a press conference after the meeting of the Council of the European Union at the level of foreign ministers of the EU countries in Brussels. The press conference was broadcast on the website of the audiovisual services of the European Commission.

“I think we have a similar situation in Venezuela when we talk about Lukashenka. We do not recognize the legitimacy of President Maduro as president of Venezuela. We do not recognize his democratic legitimacy. For the same reasons and under the same conditions, we do not recognize the democratic legitimacy of Mr. Lukashenko, because we do not believe that the elections were real ”, stressed Borrell.

He noted that the presidential elections in Belarus were rigged.

“The non-recognition of democratic legitimacy does not mean that we do not recognize reality. In fact, we have Lukashenko in Belarus, we have Maduro in Venezuela. They both have control over the government and govern the entire country,” Borrell said.

He explained the practical implications for relations with countries whose leaders are not recognized as legitimate.

“You do not work on equal terms with those you consider democratically elected, or with those you do not consider as such. Does this mean that tomorrow we will withdraw the embassies? No … But from the point of view of our relationships, we will reduce this relationship” . Borrell said.

According to him, work is underway to review relations with Belarus.

Read alsoEU leaders to consider sanctions against Belarusian officials this week: Borrell

Borrell said this will have implications for Belarus’ participation in the Eastern Partnership initiative and in high-level political meetings.

Elections and protests in Belarus: chronology of events

• Presidential elections were held in Belarus on August 9. According to official CEC data, 80.1% of voters voted for current President Alexander Lukashenko, and 10.1% for his main opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
• Thousands of Belarusian residents, who did not agree with the election results, went to protest rallies, clashes with security officials broke out. In the early days of the protests, thousands of people were detained, then many of them were assigned an administrative break.
• Lukashenko has repeatedly stated that the situation in the country is being shaken from abroad and agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin to react jointly “in case of an aggravation of the situation in terms of external threats.” On August 27, Putin allowed the use of Russian security forces to suppress protests in Belarus.
• The European Union declared non-recognition of the election results and reached an agreement to impose sanctions on Belarusian officials in response to the falsification of voting results and the use of violence against protesters.
• On September 15, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a statement on the events in Belarus. The deputies described the elections as dishonest, condemned the repressions and supported the imposition of sanctions by the European Union against Belarusian officials.
• On September 17, the European Parliament did not recognize Lukashenko’s victory in the elections and recognized the Coordination Council of the Belarusian opposition as a temporary representative body of the Belarusians.
• On September 21 in Brussels, the foreign ministers of the member states of the European Union could not agree on sanctions against Belarus.

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Author:

Vitaly Sayenko