Debates within the European Parliament: Lukashenko, Navalny and Nord Stream 2 | Europe and Europeans: News and Analytics | DW

The European Parliament normally meets for weekly plenary periods as soon as a month. During every such week, MEPs maintain debates with the participation of the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell on the three most essential, of their opinion, international coverage subjects. This time they had been protests in Belarus, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and the scenario in Lebanon.

Borrel: Lukashenko is illegitimate president

In August, the European Union didn’t acknowledge the outcomes of the presidential elections in Belarus, the winner of which was introduced by the native Central Election Commission, who ran for the sixth time period, Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Opening the talk within the European Parliament on September 15, Josep Borrell went additional. “The scenario is obvious for us – we take into account the elections on August 9 to be rigged. So Lukashenko is just not the authentic president of Ukraine …”, Borrell mentioned, scary bewildered exclamations from parliamentarians.

After a brief pause, the top of the EU diplomacy corrected himself: “Belarus. Forgive me, what I used to be simply occupied with!” And he repeated for the file: “We don’t acknowledge Lukashenka because the authentic president of Belarus.” After that, Borrell now not went astray, itemizing 4 rules of Brussels’ coverage in direction of Minsk:

– sanctions towards these accountable for violence, repression and electoral fraud. The diplomat confirmed his intention to introduce them as quickly as potential – earlier than the EU summit scheduled for September 24-25. “If the scenario worsens, we’ll take into account extra sanctions,” he added.

– The EU calls to cease violence towards protesters in Belarus and begin a nationwide dialogue. “A re-election under OSCE supervision would be the best solution, but so far we cannot contact the Belarusian authorities at any level,” Borrell admitted.

– help of the Belarusian folks and civil society. The head of EU diplomacy recalled that the European Commission promised to allocate 2 million euros to assist victims of repression and 1 million to help civil society and impartial media.

– revision of relations between the EU and Belarus. According to Borrell, Brussels is learning the areas through which it’s price suspending contacts with Minsk, however guarantees to strengthen help of bizarre residents of Belarus.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya desires to be invited to the European Parliament

The EU management is silent about who’s now thought-about the authentic chief of Belarus in Brussels. Meanwhile, the German Michael Gahler, a consultant of the most important faction within the European Parliament – the European People’s Party (EPP) – mentioned that ex-presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya obtained a mandate from voters to discover a option to new elections. His faction colleagues need to invite Tikhanovskaya to the European Parliament. And Lithuanian Rasa Yuknevichienė even referred to as her “the elected president” of Belarus. However, such an opinion was expressed solely by her.

Deputies from the center-left factions spoke extra concerning the “feminine face” of the protests. “The time has come for women in Belarus … Lukashenka claims that women should only make the world more beautiful, while men should rule over it. No, Mr. Lukashenka!”, Spaniard Irace Garcia Perez, head of the Social Democratic faction, objected to him in absentia, calling the battle 1000’s of women and men in Belarus for freedom “by our battle”.

German Macimilian Krah of the right-wing populist Identity and Democracy faction disagreed together with her. In his opinion, the folks of Belarus are maybe probably the most conservative in Europe. “Therefore, there may be little motive to claim {that a} feminist revolution is going down there,” says Kra. However, he agrees that the presidential elections in Belarus had been rigged, due to this fact stress ought to be exerted on Lukashenka. At the identical time, Kra urged to desert the “anti-Russian rhetoric”, as a result of, in his opinion, it solely encourages Moscow to strengthen its help for Lukashenka.

Putin’s help for Lukashenka

Many MEPs did certainly criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin for supporting Lukashenko. “We demand to refrain from external interference so that Belarusians can organize their democratic revolution at their discretion. But Russia is also abroad (for Belarus – Ed.), Mr. Putin “, – Galer emphasized and demanded from the President of the Russian Federation” as an exception, at least once to recognize the will of the people. “

The accusations of being anti-Russian were dismissed by German Greens Reinhard Bütikofer: “I agree with those who say:“ We don’t want to be anti-Russian. ”But being towards Putin doesn’t imply being anti-Russian.”

Who is accountable for the poisoning of Navalny

Even extra typically, the identify of the President of the Russian Federation was talked about in the course of the debate concerning the poisoning of opposition chief Alexei Navalny. A day earlier, it grew to become recognized that laboratories in France and Sweden confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned with a chemical from the Novichok household. For various MEPs, which means Putin bears no less than political accountability for what occurred. “Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent, to which solely the Russian army and intelligence businesses have entry. Therefore, we don’t must attempt to guess who’s accountable,” mentioned Katy Piri, a social democrat from the Netherlands.

French right-wing populist Thierry Mariani has referred to as on all these “demonizing” Russia to “anticipate the outcomes of this investigation.” And he added that the preliminary investigation is the case of Russia, as a member state of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). “No, we have no idea who dedicated this crime, however we all know that the opposition is a virulent disease, if we’re to consider Mr Putin,” mentioned Bernard Guetta, a French MP from the Renew Europe faction.

Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Petr Verzilov – itemizing these names of their speeches, many MEPs acknowledged that being an oppositionist or an impartial journalist in Russia is harmful. “We want the reality concerning the poisoning of (Navalny. – Ed.) “, – mentioned Sergey Lagodinsky, a deputy from the German Greens, reiterating his name for a global investigation.

Poisoning of Navalny and Nord Stream 2

EU officers haven’t but talked about the potential imposition of sanctions towards Russia for the poisoning of Navalny, confining themselves to requires Moscow to cooperate in investigating the case of using chemical weapons. At the identical time, a number of MEPs referred to as for the imposition of sanctions for Russia’s violation of human rights.

Even extra MEPs famous that after the poisoning of Navalny, the Nord Stream 2 gasoline pipeline venture can’t be continued. They had been representatives of 4 of the seven factions of the European Parliament: EPP, Social Democrats, Greens and Europe of Conservatives and Reformists.

In his closing remarks, Josep Borrell defined that each the sanctions and the destiny of Nord Stream 2 are within the competence not of the governing our bodies of the EU, however of its member states. According to Borrell, work on the institution within the EU of a authorized mechanism for imposing sanctions for violation of human rights is underway and it’s even potential that the corresponding normative act will not be named after Sergei Magnitsky, because the United States did, however after the identify of Alexei Navalny.

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