PACE to Treat Situation in Belarus :: Charter'97 :: News

Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is to consider the situation in Belarus at a session in Paris on Tuesday.

It is planned that MEPs are to pass a decision on drafting a separate report on situation in Belarus and to appoint a reporter.

At April session of the PACE last year a report of Estonian parliamentary Andres Herkel was discussed. In the resolution of the Assembly adopted following up the results of the debate, the PACE called upon the countries which are not members of the EU, to join sanctions imposed against high-ranking Belarusian officials by Brussels in the beginning of the last year. At a meeting in Luxembourg in 2006 the European Union authorised a so-called “black list” of Belarus’ official representatives banned from entering the EU countries for 12 months. The list consists of 31 persons.

In the middle of the 1990ies the Council of Europe has frozen a status of a “specially invited guest” for Minsk.

In January of 2007 Belarus was visited by the chairman of the PACE Rene van der Linden. He stated that cooperation between Belarus and Europe is possible only after democratization of the country, primarily after a release of political prisoners.