David Pratt: Ryanair 'hijacking' puts EU foreign policy to the test

The forced landing in Minsk and subsequent detention of Roman Protasevich, former editor of Nexta, one of the main independent Belarusian media groups, was “yet another blatant attempt by the Belarusian authorities to silence all opposition voices”, said Josep Borrell, EU foreign policy chief.

European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, meanwhile was even more forthright, threatening “consequences” for the “outrageous and illegal behaviour of the regime in Belarus”. She tweeted: “Those responsible for the Ryanair hijacking must be sanctioned. Journalist Roman Protasevich must be released immediately.”

The diversion of a plane owned by an EU company that was flying between two EU capitals and seizure of Protasevich was just the latest foreign policy test for the EU which often talks tough but seems less inclined to follow through with direct action.

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Yes, admittedly, European leaders have already imposed three rounds of sanctions on Belarus and its President Alexander Lukashenko and other regime members following their crackdown on opposition activists in the wake of last year’s presidential polls.

That the EU will toughen its position even further is now inevitable even if it remains wary of over-doing things against Minsk for fear of pushing Lukashenko into even closer ties with Russia.

The obvious option is to shun Belarus's airspace and ban national carrier Belavia from EU airports. But wider and tighter sanctions remain the key weapon in the EU’s arsenal even if as one senior diplomat said, “It's not so easy to calibrate sanctions if you want to spare the population.”

But even if tougher sanctions are imposed, the inescapable fact is that for some time now, many have viewed EU sanctions as something of a paper tiger. Nowhere more so than perhaps Crimea on which sanctions were imposed in 2014 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ostensibly, EU nationals were banned from doing business in Russia-occupied Crimea and those who harmed “the territorial integrity” of Ukraine were blacklisted.

But as the online newspaper EUobserver highlighted only this week using the case of Greek billionaire, Ivan Savvidi, there are those who make a mockery of EU sanctions on Russia.

Mr Savvidi himself is said to be actively engaged in food supplies to Crimea and openly funds pro-Russian occupation propaganda events say analysts who suggest that any comparable sanctions imposed against Belarus will be treated by Minsk with a similar disdain.

On the other hand, this week’s events could yet prove a watershed moment for EU foreign policy decisions that require a unanimous agreement by the 27 member states, something that in the past has often proved elusive.

Ireland’s Minister of State for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne, noted that he had “never seen such anger” across the EU and many firmly believe that anger will now translate into unprecedented action.

Certainly, this is the moment says the bloc’s staunchest supporters when it needs to show it has a foreign policy that works and can be relied upon to be robust and as effective as the “soft policy” approach some within the EU appear to favour.

The fact that even Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, not always known for being an EU team player, has come out in favour of tougher action against fellow authoritarian Mr Lukashenko, suggests that this time the EU might really mean business. Should however Mr Orban pull a U-turn and again use his veto to scupper any collective action this week, fellow EU leaders many will find it hard to forgive him.

But it’s also worth noting that the situation right now in Belarus is not the only crisis currently testing the mettle of EU foreign policy. Another part of the world is also proving to be the arena in which an important shift in EU foreign and security policy is already underway and not without generating considerable controversy.

Recently, in what is undoubtedly a toughening of stance, the European bloc for the first time is now allowed to arm governments in the name of fighting terrorism, protecting civilians, and stabilising fragile states. As the Financial Times reported just a few days ago, the money for this will come from a new €5bn fund over seven years known rather incongruously as the European Peace Facility (EPF).

The EPF has been described as the most significant expansion yet in growing EU efforts to project “hard power” to influence international conflicts particularly in regions close to its borders such as eastern Europe and Africa. A likely focus of the EPF will be in the Sahel region of West Africa in countries like Mali, Chad, and Niger where French and other forces are already engaged in tackling Islamist-inspired terrorism.

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“We are not going to stop the terrorists from killing people just by preaching,” insisted EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell recently.

“We need arms. We need military capacities and that is what we are going to provide, to help our African friends. Because their security is our security,” Mr Borrell added.

But it goes without saying that many are less than convinced by such policies, pointing to intervention and supplies of arms in the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan as sobering lessons as to what can go wrong.

“There is a growing contradiction in the EU’s approach to conflict and crises,” says Lucia Montanaro, head of the EU office of Saferworld, a non-governmental group focused on conflicts.

“Its strong commitments to promoting human rights, gender equality and arms control are increasingly overshadowed by efforts to boost the combat capability of authoritarian partners,” Ms Montanaro was cited by the FT as saying this week expressing the concern of others.

On the face of it for an EU rhetorically committed to democracy and human rights it does seem like a significant shift in foreign policy enactment on the ground. But this is the fluid ever shifting geo-political world of which the EU is part and there is simply no escaping.

Whether it be an assertive Russia, the threat of jihadism or what was tantamount to an act of “air piracy” on a flight between two EU capitals, the EU is rapidly concluding that simply talking about a response is sometimes not enough.

David Pratt is Contributing Foreign Editor. He appears in The Herald every Wednesday and Sunday. Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald