THE HAGUE - European leaders agreed on Monday to take action against Belarus, in what Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte described as the fastest decision-making, he had ever seen by EU leaders.
The move came just a day after Belarus officials forced a scheduled Ryanair plane to divert from Vilnius to Minsk and arrested opposition campaigner Roman Protasevich who was on board.
‘This plane was flying from one European capital to another and was forced to land in a non-EU country,’ Rutte said. ‘I have never experienced such speedy decision-making… This shows how seriously we take it.’
Rutte said he supported the imposition of economic sanctions against Belarus. ‘It is a country with a lot of state companies which earn the money,’ he said. ‘The regime has its fingers in these companies… so you can assume that senior levels of this corrupt country will feel the impact of sanctions.’
The details of what form the sanctions will take are still being worked out and it is too early to say what the impact on Dutch companies is likely to be, Rutte said.
EU leaders have already agreed that Belarus planes may no longer land at European airports and must avoid EU airspace. Belarus airline Belavia flies to 26 European cities.
European airlines are also being asked to avoid Belarus airspace and Dutch airline KLM, which earlier said there was no security risk to passengers, has now agreed to comply.