Belarusian Foreign Ministry Responds to EU Court Decision

The decision of the EU Court of Justice, which on July 3 rejected the appeal of Grodno Azot OJSC and its branch Khimvolokno Plant JSC in connection with the EU sanctions imposed on Belarusian enterprises, although causing deep disappointment is quite predictable. Such statement was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus.

"It is obvious to any unbiased legal expert that the sanctions regime of the European Union is not only applied in gross violation of the UN Charter, but is also drafted in such a way that, in fact, it can be used against any legal entity or individual without proper legal grounds. In the case of Belarusian enterprises, the so-called sufficient grounds are only the state form of ownership and the payment of taxes. As sanctions packages are rubber-stamped and court decisions are issued, the European bureaucracy does not even try to comply with the external rules of legal decency, including the presumption of innocence and sufficiency of evidence. It is also worth mentioning here that Belarusian legal entities have been blocked from receiving qualified legal advice in the EU and other necessary legal assistance," said Ruslan Varankov, Spokesperson, Head of Information and Digital Diplomacy Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry has once again urged the European Union to finally abandon the harmful practice of using illegal restrictive measures, which are exclusively instruments of unfair competition and political pressure.