MEPs call on Belarus to repeat presidential election in draft resolution
Also, the European People's Party urges the EU bodies to stop all the financial support to Belarus and its participation in the Eastern Partnership, to freeze assets to BELTEH Export and other arms export enterprises for Belarus.
The biggest political group of the European Parliament - the European People's Party (EPP) - has presented its own, an unprecedentedly strict draft resoultion on Belarus. The MEPs will adopt the agreed document with consideration other political groups' texts on January 20.The draft resolution of the European People's Party's MEPs calls on the Council, the Commission and the EU High Representative, among the other things:
- To freeze all the macro financial aid provided via IMF loans as well as lending operations by EIB and EBRD programmes;
- To suspend Belarusian participation in Eastern Partnership activities until genuine changes will take place in Belarus, starting with the unconditional liberation of all members of political opposition;
- To review EU policy towards Belarus including economic relations; to support democracy in Belarus by a significant increase of financial aid for independent media (including TV Belsat, European Radio for Belarus, Radio Racyja and others) and civil society organisations, to increase the number of scholarships for Belarusian students, repressed for their civic activities and expelled from universities, to continue and increase financial aid to the European Humanities University (EHU) based in Vilnius, Lithuania;
- To limit contacts with the Belarusian authorities to the absolute minimum;
- To immediately re-apply the visa ban on the leading Belarusian authorities, expanding it to the state officials, members of the judiciary and security officers who can be considered responsible for the vote-rigging and post-election brutal repressions and arrests of members of the opposition;
- To freeze assets to BELTETH Export and other arms export enterprises for Belarus;
- To intensify work on the negotiations directives for visa facilitation and readmission agreements (excluding diplomatic passports) in order to enhance people-to-people contacts;
Apart from that, the EPP draft resoultion:
- Condemns the arrests and detentions of over 700 protesters and seven of the nine alternative presidential candidates; the repressions and harassment of the civil society activists which followed Election Day, including mass searches in private apartments, offices of the media outlets and the civil society organisations, expulsions from universities and workplaces; the use of brutal force by the police and KGB services against the protesters on the Election Day and in particular expresses its indignation over a brutal attack on Mr Niakliayeu”;
-Condemns the Belarusian authorities for failing to provide unhindered access of the detainees to the legal and most of all, medical assistance;
- Invites the international partners of the European Union to adopt a common position and follow a similar strategy towards the Belarusian regime; calls on the European Union partners to join efforts in creating an international commission for an objective and detailed investigation of the events of 19‑20 December 2010;
- Expresses its opinion that sport events, like the World Ice Hockey Championships in 2014, should not be held in Belarus while there are political prisoners in that country;
- Calls on the European Commission to halt the ongoing cooperation and to withdraw its assistance provided to the state-owned media in Belarus;
The European People's Party calls on the Belarusian authorites to repeat the presidential election. The document contains the extracts from the preliminary statement of the OSCE observing mission, according to which "the overall voting process was assessed as good, the process deteriorated significantly during the vote count undermining the steps taken to improve the election".
It is also stated in the document that: "In many cases, observers were restricted and did not have a real opportunity to observe the counting. In some cases the figures recorded in the results of polling station protocols were different upon arrival at the Territorial Election Commissions (TEC)".
Other political groups of the European Parliament, namely, socialists and liberals, also suggested their variants of resolution on Belarus. They are rather strict, too, the majority of claims coinside with the EPP's opinion. The European Parliament will vote on the document agreed by all the political groups on January 20.
