Interview with Head of European Commission's delegation to Belarus

Jean-Eric Holzapfel, head of the European Commission’s delegation to Belarus, gave an interview to BelaPAN.

He said that the European Union was not planning to impose new sanctions against Belarus.

“The EU’s position is clear. We’ve proposed 12 steps that Belarus should take to achieve democratization,” Mr. Holzapfel said. “We’ve imposed visa restrictions on Belarusian officials and frozen their bank accounts. The EU doesn’t intend to do something new at the moment.”

Mr. Holzapfel said that Minsk should meet the 12 conditions to be fully involved in the European Neighborhood Policy. He said that one of them was the release of political prisoners, noting that the European Union regarded former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin as such.

When speaking about the opening of the European Commission's office in Minsk, he said that the move was logical and based on the reciprocity principle as Minsk had its diplomatic mission in Brussels.