EU can now discuss easing Belarus sanctions: Germany

(LUXEMBOURG) - The EU can now discuss easing sanctions against Belarus after President Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected without major incident, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday.

"As far as we could observe from Berlin, there has not been as much repression around the elections as previously," Steinmeier said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers where a possible suspension of long-standing sanctions against Belarus is on the agenda.

Steinmeier said the outcome itself of Sunday's election in the former Soviet state was "not a surprise," but the country was changing.

"After all, there was the liberation of political prisoners before the elections," he said.

"That is why we will talk... about the conditions, the timeframe under which sanctions against Belarus can be changed or be lifted."

EU sources told AFP last week that Brussels was ready to suspend sanctions, due for renewal on October 31, after Lukashenko released the country's last political prisoners.

The decision, however, would depend on whether the elections passed off without major incident, the sources said.

"That means, if there are no new arrests of opposition figures, if there is no violence and no attacks against the press," one EU diplomat said.

Current EU sanctions imposed for rights abuses involve travel bans and asset freezes against Lukashenko and around 170 other individuals and 14 groups.

Lukashenko, 61, won a fifth consecutive term by a landslide and pointedly warned the opposition against protests that could derail the lifting of the EU sanctions.

A shrewd operator who Washington once dubbed "Europe's last dictator," Lukashenko has recently raised his standing with the EU by seeking to distance his ex-Soviet nation from Russia over the Ukraine crisis.