Poland Proposes Billion-euro EU Fund For Belarus

Warsaw, Sept 17 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Sep, 2020 ) :Poland on Thursday proposed an EU stabilisation fund for Belarus worth at least one billion Euros ($1.2 billion), as a top opposition leader prepared to meet EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Warsaw's call for financial support comes days after Russian President Vladimir Putin backed embattled Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko and promised a $1.5 billion loan.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called it a "new Marshall Plan" -- a reference to the US programme that pumped vast financial aid into western Europe to rebuild after World War II.

"The fund should really be significant... so at least a billion euros at this stage," he said at a joint press conference with his Lithuanian counterpart in Vilnius.

The plan would be for funds to go to small and medium-sized enterprises in Belarus, while facilitating access to EU markets for Belarusian exporters and opening up the Belarusian economy.

Morawiecki said he would formally present the plan at the September 24-25 European Council, adding that several fellow EU eastern members have already endorsed it.

The proposal comes after weeks of unprecedented protests against Lukashenko's 26-year rule that have been met with a violent crackdown.

Journalists have also been targeted and on Thursday a number of independent Belarusian media ran with blank spaces instead of images on Thursday to protest the jailing of two photographers for 11 days for covering protests.

"We are demanding that pressure on journalists be halted," said tut.by, a top independent Belarusian outlet. "We will fight for our rights."The protests followed a presidential election on August 9 in which Lukashenko and his rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya both claimed victory.