EU to impose new sanctions on Belarus this week -EU official

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union is planning to impose new sanctions on Belarus this week for helping the Russian invasion of Ukraine, hitting exports, oligarchs, central bank and cutting Belarusian banks off from SWIFT, a senior EU official said on Monday.

“In terms of the economic sanctions package, it’s imminent, it’ll probably be proposed either today or tomorrow,” the official, who asked not to be named, said. “I would expect that in the course of this week we will introduce restrictive measures against the most important economic sectors in Belarus,” he said.

The official said the aim will be to stop exports of any further Belarusian goods and that will include mineral fuels, tobacco, wood, cement and iron steel. The EU will also remove some of the loopholes that were still there on exports of potash.

“We’re also doing the export restrictions on dual use goods, and in addition we’re now looking at whether we can replicate what we’re doing with the Central bank with Russia and on the swift measures with the Belarusian economy,” the official said.