Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-05-Speech-3-186"
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"en.20060405.18.3-186"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I have to say, with all due respect – for I realise that the Council is already using relatively strong language as it is – that the statements disappoint me to some extent. It is still unclear when, and in what way, the proposed sanctions and measures will actually be carried out by all Member States, including the Commission.
Extending the visa ban on government representatives is, of course, wonderful, but what to do with judges, police officials involved in ill-treatment, and suchlike? Will a visa ban be imposed on them too? What happened to the idea of launching, simultaneously and with immediate effect, a flexible policy with regard to cheap visas for the ordinary Belarusian citizens and particularly for students? Or to the idea of freezing foreign assets, better gearing the financial programmes to the specific situations, supporting the independent press and so on and so forth? When and in what way will something be done about this? Ultimately, fine words will not get us very far. It is wonderful when we express solidarity in words, but what we need is concrete action. What I was looking forward to hear were dates, statistics, timeframes and hard facts.
Moreover, as Mr Wiersma pointed out a moment ago, Russia’s role remains underexposed. Mr Putin congratulated Lukashenko on his victory without as much as batting an eyelid. He is also the man who keeps the wheels of industry oiled with his cheap supplies of raw materials. At the end of April, we will know whether Mr Putin will continue to apply the bizarrely low gas prices to Belarus. Everything will depend on the interest which Russia pursues in Beltransgas, the Belarusian company. Economic gain is thus the objective.
I would once again like to urge the Council and the Commission to spell out clearly to Mr Putin what the EU stands for. We must now crank up the pressure, not least in connection with the G8 energy summit to be held in St Petersburg in mid-July, but the Council is so far adopting an extremely cautious attitude. I would therefore ask the Council whether it is scared that taking a clear stand might conflict with other priorities, such as its own supply of energy?"@en1
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