Hijacking of European plane in Minsk – Act of piracy. No European planes in Belarus
Members of the RENEW EUROPE demand that European planes should no longer fly over Belarus. This request was made by members of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Transport and Tourism Committees.
The MEPs are referring to the forced landing in Minsk of a European company aircraft flying from Athens to Vilnius. They explicitly call it “an act of piracy in flagrant violation of the Chicago Convention”. They call on the EU to join efforts to exclude the country led by Alexander Lukashenko from the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
The members of the two parliamentary committees also call on the European Aviation Safety Agency to report urgently on the hijacked plane. And that “individuals and entities responsible for the illegal forced landing” of the aircraft be sanctioned “without delay”.
Reactions and sanctions for Belarus
According to USRPLUS MEP Vlad Gheorghe, these are the demands outlined during the talks between the two committees.
“Yesterday the European Union was attacked. We felt that this should be written in black and white as an official position. The hijacking of a European plane full of European citizens is simply an attack on the EU. And the military escort under which the aircraft was placed leaves no room for interpretation. The European Union cannot tolerate this continued defiance by the Lukashenko regime. All the more so as European citizens have had their rights flagrantly violated and have even been put at risk”. This is what Gheorghe said as an alternate member of the Transport and Tourism Committee for the RENEW EUROPE parliamentary group.
The requests are signed on behalf of MEPs by coordinators José Ramón Bauzá Díaz and Hilde Vautmans. They are addressed to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Council, Charles Michel, Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Adina Vălean, Commissioner for Transport.
European leaders announced yesterday that relations with Russia are on the agenda of today’s extraordinary European Council meeting. This include sanctions on Belarus. NATO ambassadors will discuss the case of the plane crash-landed in Minsk on Tuesday. The organisation initially called for an international investigation into the incident, which was deemed “serious and dangerous”. The director of the commercial company operating the hijacked flight also denounced an act of “piracy”. Additionally, thousands of messages are circulating on social media calling on the Belarusian authorities to release detained dissident Roman Protasevich and his partner, both arrested yesterday at Minsk airport.
