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France’s ambassador ‘ordered out of Belarus,’ leaves
before Monday deadline – reports
17 Oct, 2021 20:34 / Updated 3 minutes ago
The French ambassador to Belarus has left Minsk after being ordered out of the country, AFP reported on Sunday. No explanation about the reported expulsion has been immediately available.
AFP’s Sunday evening report said that Ambassador Nicolas de Bouillane de Lacoste has already departed from Minsk, and that the Belarusian authorities had set an October 18 deadline for his departure.
The agency cited a French embassy spokesman, who said that the envoy sent his goodbyes to the staff before leaving, but also recorded a “video message addressing the Belarusian people,” which is said to be scheduled to appear on Monday.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the envoy's purported expulsion and, so far, the Belarusian government has made no official statement on the matter.
The purported expulsion, however, came just days after the ambassador hosted several representatives of the recently-banned Belarusian NGO ‘Govori Pravdu’ (‘Tell the Truth’) in the embassy. On Wednesday, the envoy met the NGO members, including its co-leader Andrey Dmitriev, one of the candidates in last year’s controversial presidential election.
Paris and Minsk have been at odds since August 2020, after Paris, alongside other EU nations and the US, refused to recognize the results of presidential election won by the long-term Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Instead, Paris courted Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. She visited France back in September, meeting top officials including Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
The French ambassador had personally shown disrespect to President Lukashenko. The diplomat, who assumed his post last year, skipped the presentation of credentials ceremony, in which newly-appointed envoys meet a nation’s leader. Instead, he proceeded to give copies of his credentials to Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makey.
Strange attitude for an ambassador!
‘Head of a state-run smuggling ring’: German FM Maas slams Belarus’
Lukashenko as migrant situation on EU border deteriorates
18 Oct, 2021 14:41
(L) FILE PHOTO. Polish soldiers build a fence on the border between Poland and Belarus. © Reuters / KACPER PEMPEL; (R) Belarusian President Lukashenko. © Reuters / SHAMIL ZHUMATOV
With increasing numbers of migrants stuck in no-man’s-land on the border between Belarus and the EU, the German foreign minister has hit out at Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, accusing him of running a smuggling ring.
Speaking on Monday, before a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg, Heiko Maas called on the bloc to make it clear to Minsk that Brussels had had enough.
“Lukashenko is nothing more than the head of a state-run smuggling ring,” Maas told the press. “We are no longer willing to watch while companies, such as airlines, earn money from bringing refugees to Germany or other European countries. We need sanctions to make it clear that we are no longer willing to accept this behavior.”
Maas is the latest in a long line of officials from EU countries to call for actions to be taken against Minsk in the wake of a crisis that has seen thousands of asylum seekers attempt to cross the border of Belarus into Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
The build-up of migrants began after Lukashenko warned that his country would no longer make any effort to stop illegal immigration. The EU has claimed that the government in Minsk is flying in people from abroad and is shuttling them to the frontier as a form of warfare. The majority are from the Middle East.
The number of migrants has grown significantly in the past few months, and now the EU countries bordering Belarus are seeing asylum applications grow an order of magnitude higher than previous years.
“Even though the situation seems under control, the flows are actually not diminishing,” Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told the press before the same EU meeting.
“What tools do countries like Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland need to use, or can they use, in order to stop the weaponized migration that is being forced on the European Union?” he said, cited by the news agency AP.
The bloc’s treatment of migrants from Belarus has been subject to criticism by human rights organizations, including London-based NGO Amnesty International. Last month, the group lambasted Poland in particular, accusing it of illegally stranding 32 Afghan migrants, leaving them without access to clean water, shelter, and medicine.
“Poland has been cruelly holding this group of people on their border in horrendous conditions for weeks,” said Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office.
Russia to suspend direct diplomatic ties with NATO from November
with US-led bloc’s Moscow mission ordered to close – FM Lavrov
18 Oct, 2021 11:47
© Getty Images / Beata Zawrzel
Moscow has announced that it will completely suspend the operations of its mission to NATO, two weeks after the US-led bloc expelled eight Russian diplomats for alleged 'undisclosed espionage' at its Brussels headquarters.
Speaking on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also revealed that the NATO information bureau in Moscow will be forced to shut down as part of retaliatory measures.
Earlier this month, NATO officials decided to slash the size of the permanent Russian delegation to the bloc, revoking the credenitals of eight envoys, in response to what it called “suspected malign Russian activities.”
Following NATO's decision, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that Moscow would work on a response.
Now, if the US-led bloc wants to talk to Russia, it must deal with the embassy in Belgium, Lavrov said.
“As a result of purposeful steps by NATO, we do not have the right conditions for elementary diplomatic activities,” he told TASS news agency.
“In response to NATO's actions, we are suspending the work of our permanent mission, including the work of our chief military representative.”
“The NATO International Secretariat has already been notified.”
“If NATO members have any urgent matters, they can contact our ambassador in Belgium, who ensures bilateral relations between Russia and the Kingdom of Belgium,” the minister said.
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Red line: Ukraine joining NATO would be ‘worst-case scenario’ for Moscow,
response would involve ‘active measures,’ says Kremlin
18 Oct, 2021 09:36
The accession of Ukraine to NATO is a “worst-case scenario” that would cross a “red line” for Moscow’s interests and, if Kiev were accepted as a member, Russia would be forced to take measures to protect its national security.
That’s according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who told Parisian TV channel France 5 about the threat Moscow perceives from the US-led bloc, while also noting that Russia wishes to be a part of a prosperous Europe.
“Ukraine’s accession to NATO would be the worst-case scenario,” Peskov told the French journalists for a program called ‘Vladimir Putin: Master of the Game’.
“This is a scenario that goes beyond the red lines of Russia’s national interests. This is a scenario that could force Russia to take active measures to ensure its own security,” he explained.
Peskov also responded to accusations that the movement of Russian troops near the country’s frontier with Ukraine was a threat to the West.
“Of course, we can understand your feelings. But we prefer that you Europeans become better informed,” the Kremlin spokesman explained.
“Because, before the Russian troops were moved to that region, there were large NATO exercises held near the Russian border. Everyone talks about the concentration of Russian troops all the time, but nobody talks about the concentration of NATO troops.”
Peskov also batted away suggestions that Russia is interested in a “divided Europe” and called for the European Union to have its own independent army and defense system, outside of the American-led bloc.
“It is not clear whether Americans will stay in Europe and continue to defend Europeans against those ‘terrible Russians’,” he noted.
EU risks becoming ‘centrally managed’ as ‘dangerous phenomenon’
of institutional action threatens bloc’s future, Polish PM warns
18 Oct, 2021 14:49
May 24, 2021. © Pool via Reuters / Olivier Hoslet
Poland’s prime minister has penned a letter to the European Union warning that the bloc is at risk of becoming a “centrally managed organism, run by institutions deprived of democratic control”.
PM Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday wrote to EU leaders, institutions and member state governments claiming that “unfortunately, today we are dealing with a very dangerous phenomenon whereby various European Union institutions usurp powers they do not have under the Treaties and impose their will on Member States”.
We ought to be anxious about the gradual transformation of the Union into an entity that would cease to be an alliance of free, equal and sovereign states, and instead become a single, centrally managed organism, run by institutions deprived of democratic control by the citizens of European countries.
The Polish PM also listed several major challenges that the EU faces, including Brexit, a financial crisis “that threatens to weaken or even collapse the euro area”, and the gas and energy crisis which “threatens poverty for millions”.
“The fate of our Union in recent years is not a chronicle of success. If we want to avoid further crises, we must change our ways,” Morawiecki warned.
The PM also offered his assurances that Poland “remains a loyal member” of the 27-nation bloc, and asked for Brussels to hear the country’s arguments and “be open to dialogue” in hopes of finding “a solution that will strengthen our European Union”.
Morawiecki’s letter comes after the Polish Constitutional Tribunal ruled earlier this month that areas of the EU treaties are incompatible with Warsaw’s laws, concluding the principle that its laws take precedence.
The landmark ruling found Poland has the right to check the constitutionality of EU legislation, as well as decisions made by its Court of Justice.
Last week Morawiecki lashed out with accusations that EU institutions impinge on the rights of its member nations, remarking that “democracy is being tested” and that “we are at a crossroads” in the bloc’s history.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the executive body would use all of its powers to ensure the bloc’s law retains primacy in the wake of the Polish ruling.
The law supremacy spat is another point of contention between Brussels and Warsaw. The two have clashed over the bloc’s opposition to Poland’s self-declared LGBTQ-free zones, as well as its Court of Justice ordering the country to pay a €500,000 ($585,550) daily fine for failing to end lignite mining activities after legal action was launched by neighboring Czech Republic over the site’s impact on local residential water supplies.
Czech president Zeman unable to fulfil duties, senate speaker reveals,
as leader spends 8th day in intensive care
18 Oct, 2021 16:17
The speaker of the Czech upper house has said that the country’s president Milos Zeman is unable to carry out his duties, having spent a week in intensive care, and is unlikely to return to office in the coming weeks.
Speaking on Monday, Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil told reporters that he had been informed by medics that there was only a small chance that the Czech leader would return to work in the coming weeks.
Vystrcil was citing a report from the hospital in which Zeman is staying, having been admitted to intensive care a week ago. Vystrcil said that Zeman was unable to carry out his duties and the government needed to look at shifting the president’s responsibilities onto other public officials.
Zeman was rushed to hospital eight days ago, shortly after holding talks with the outgoing prime minister Andrej Babis. The hospital director said that he was admitted to intensive care concerning complications related to a pre-existing condition.
The president had been rushed to hospital in September too. He is known to have various health conditions, including diabetes, and was a heavy smoker and drinker. During a visit to a cigarette factory in 2013, he announced that it was safe for people to start smoking later on in life.
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