The European Union will not impose sanctions on Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, TASS reports citing Die Welt.

The sanctions were opposed by Germany, France and Italy, as in their view the inclusion of Aleksandr Lukashenko in the black list would mean full suspension of dialogue with Minsk. The introduction of restrictive measures against the Belarusian leader was pushed for, first of all, by the Baltic states and Poland.

The EU was going to impose sanctions on 15-20 senior Belarusian officials in response to protests in Belarus. The people on the roster will be denied entry to the EU and access to the European banking system. At the informal meeting in Berlin on 27-28 August, the EU foreign affairs ministers decided to push for sanctions against Belarus.