EU/BELARUS : UNION TO EXTEND VISA BAN ON TOP OFFICIALS.

• Position: Brief article

The EU is expected to extend for another year its travel sanctions against President Alexander Lukashenko and 35 top-ranking Belarusian officials, imposing at the same time a one-year moratorium on the application of the ban. A decision to this end is set to be taken at the forthcoming foreign ministers' meeting, scheduled for 25 October in Luxembourg.

Until last year, EU-Belarus relations had been in a limbo following the undemocratic parliamentary elections of November 2008. In 2009, after the Georgia-Russia war in August, the EU changed its policy towards Minsk into a conditional engagement'. Political dialogue has been re-launched. The EU has suspended a visa ban on Belarusian leaders, admitted the country into its Eastern Partnership project and offered tentative talks on further assistance in response to assurances from Minsk to allow some democratic reforms, and has also embarked on negotiations with Belarus on a...