EU must help Belarusians fleeing Lukashenka

Five years after the stolen presidential elections that cemented Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s dictatorship, the EPP Group recalls that numerous testimonies indicate that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was the legitimate winner of the vote. In a plenary debate and a vote later today, the EPP Group renews its call for the immediate release of all political prisoners and urges the EU and its Member States to take concrete action to help Belarusian democrats in prisons and in exile. 

“For its international credibility and moral authority, and to regain trust, the European Union must commit to serious and tangible efforts on the ground rather than engaging solely in performative symbolic gestures", said Ondrej Kolář MEP, the EPP Group’s spokesman on Belarus.  "We need measures that allow those fleeing the oppression of the authoritarian regime to live decent lives abroad - that would weaken and undermine such a regime. Otherwise, we risk being outshone by US special envoys”, continued Kolář. 

Kolář stressed that the EU should demand proof of political prisoners’ whereabouts, insist on their release, and simplify visa and identity procedures. “Belarusian students and academics must have easier access to European universities, and we must continue supporting independent Belarusian media in Lithuania and Poland - they are key to undermining the regime,” he added.

In the resolution, the Parliament calls on the European Commission and the Member States to simplify procedures for visas and residence permits for Belarusians fleeing repression, adopt common rules and procedures to deal with cases of statelessness, and assist those Belarusians whose identity documents are expiring and cannot safely return to Belarus to renew them.

“It’s clear that  Lukashenka lost the presidential elections in 2020 and in 2025. He knows it", insists Andrzej Halicki MEP, Vice-Chair of the EPP Group. "He bears personal responsibility for the terror he unleashed on his own people and for the fate of the political prisoners. Lukashenka will be held personally accountable for all the atrocities that have been committed before the International Criminal Court”, Halicki stressed.