Plane hijacking...

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by mapuc

There's only one thing I'm wondering about

The response-What kind of weak response can we expect EU and/or NATO will come up with ?

Markus

France says flights by Belarusian carrier Belavia could be banned from EU airspace. WOW!

Sanctions are a popular tool in diplomacy. They sound tough, often cost little and, by and large, don’t involve loss of life.

But will the measures being discussed in Brussels this evening make a difference?

Belarus is already subject to a range of UK and EU sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes.

The obvious first option is to harden those sanctions and widen their impact. But EU politicians have already said an act of external aggression like this requires more.

So that will probably involve some kind of EU-wide ban on Belarus’s national carrier and a declaration the country’s airspace is unsafe.

The big question is whether the EU will go even further and impose sanctions on big state-owned companies and key sectors of the Belarus economy, such as oil or potash. Some countries may not want to go that far.

Some may be reluctant to see the people of Belarus suffer for the sins of their leaders. Others will fear that deepening the country’s isolation will only push it further into the warm embrace of Russia. So sanctions might sometimes sound like an easy option. But not always.

Typical response I suspect.