In an article entitled “EU agrees to drop most sanctions against Belarus”, written by Christian Oliver and carried by The Financial Times, the author quoted Ms. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who said that:
“This is clearly not a rosy or perfect picture. Far from that — that was the general assessment of all the ministers. But we agreed on a critical engagement, where some might underline more the ‘critical’ and some might underline more the ‘engagement’.”
According to the author, “EU officials have described the alleviation of sanctions as a way to test a rapprochement with Belarus, saying they could be reapplied in case of any backsliding”.
Kyrill Koktysh, associate professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations(studio guest) and Vyachaslau Pazdnyak, the Minsk-based coordinator of the “Wider Europe” project commented on the topic.
