The Belarusian Dilemma

The United States recently lifted its sanctions on Belarus’ potash exports in exchange for Minsk’s release of 123 political prisoners, a decision that followed a similar deal in September that saw Washington’s lifting of sanctions on the Belarusian national airline. Both developments raise the question of whether the EU should leverage its sanctions similarly.

At the heart of the debate is the risk that engagement with the Minsk regime legitimizes it and sidelines the Belarusian opposition in exile. But engagement also presents a moral dilemma for the EU, even if its sanctions have yielded no change in the Minsk regime’s behavior, and they appear to have become an end in themselves.

One argument against reengaging with Belarus is that the EU must remain principled and learn from its earlier mistakes of sometimes accommodating President Aliaksandr Lukashenka without achieving any tangible results. Another is that the regime cannot be trusted as it has often followed the release of some political prisoners by detaining more. Opponents of reengagement also argue that the EU sanctions should be maintained and even tightened.

This assumes that sustained sanctions pressure will eventually yield results. But growing research shows that protracted sanctions lose their effectiveness over time. For one thing, evolving political dynamics frequently reshape the objectives of sanctions, which become progressively harder to attain. And, in fact, sanctions are more likely to produce results before they are formally imposed, as targeted actors alter their behavior in response to the threat.

Changes in the behavior of targeted states are also more likely to result from the gradual easing of sanctions. A structured and phased process to do so, guided by clear and achievable benchmarks, may therefore offer stronger incentives for Minsk to make some concessions.

However, little is known about how to implement effectively such an easing. Sanctions are rarely introduced with a clear plan for their eventual removal. They also often have overly ambitious objectives. Those against Belarus were initially centered on the organizing of new elections and of an inclusive national dialogue as well as on the end of repression. They now also address the regime’s instrumentalization of migrants at the Belarus-EU border and its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. While politically appealing in the EU, this sets expectations unrealistically high and offers little prospect of concrete results.

Effective sanctions design involves achievable goals and clear criteria for how and when they should be eased, but this is exactly what the EU sanctions against Belarus lack. Instead of such a roadmap, EU policymakers prefer to preserve the flexibility to decide what is the optimal moment when their gradual easing could achieve results.

Effective sanctions design involves achievable goals and clear criteria for how and when they should be eased, but this is exactly what the EU sanctions against Belarus lack.

While the EU has previously enacted and lifted sanctions against Belarus, these were largely limited to individual targets. By contrast, its recent comprehensive sanctions target multiple sectors of the country’s economy and financial institutions. In their case, the EU’s ability to leverage their easing may be constrained as there are no guarantees for Minsk that their impact will be undone should this happen.

The enforcement of these comprehensive sectoral sanctions relies heavily on private-sector actors that may be hesitant to reengage in Belarus even if the EU eases them, due to the risk of uncertainty. For example, when the United States lifted its sanctions on Iran in 2016, financial institutions were encouraged to resume operations in connection with the country but, after a decade of strict sanctions they remained reluctant to do so, out of wariness about the risk of sanctions being reimposed if the political climate changed.

The general consequences of the protracted EU sanctions may also be difficult to mitigate; for example, years of severed rail and air ties will leave lasting effects on Belarus.

Things are further complicated by Belarus’s close economic and political ties with Russia, given the wide-ranging sanctions that the EU has imposed on the latter in recent years. This makes the easing of sanctions pressure on Minsk more difficult as it is not only targeted for its domestic actions but also to prevent the circumvention of EU sanctions on Moscow.

It appears that, for EU policymakers, maintaining and tightening sanctions against the Lukashenka regime, even when this has not produced any change in its behavior, is a more comfortable and morally acceptable option than gradually recalibrating them in exchange for specific concessions, such as the release of political prisoners or the dismantling of repressive practices in Belarus.

The EU’s potential to act in a more flexible way is also constrained by the fact that achieving the needed unanimity among all member states on any gradual sanctions relief toward Belarus appears virtually impossible. Lithuania, in particular, has been among the most outspoken proponents of the intensified sanctions pressure, notably in response to recent violations of its airspace.

Divergent threat perceptions among member states regarding Belarus, combined with the accumulated sunk costs of sanctions and the risk of reputational damage, appear to preclude any reconsideration of the EU’s current approach toward the country, regardless of the recent change of approach by the United States.

However, the EU should treat its sanctions not as an end in themselves but as a tool designed to deliver specific results. This requires it to draw on the lessons from previous cycles of sanctions imposition and relaxation vis-à-vis Belarus in order to leverage the potential of its sanctions toolbox more effectively this time. Otherwise, the EU’s policy toward the country risks stagnating and not producing any change.

Yuliya Miadzvetskaya is a ReThink.CEE Fellow 2021 of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.