Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 422 posts

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#51

Post by stanpinte »

calpaterson wrote: post #45
matkoniecz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, thanks for revealing that I should trust journalism even less than I thought. I now noticed that > The EU has decided to ban Belarusian airlines from European skies has "decided" not "implemented" or "started", so technically it is matching reality, even if misleading.

"Cock-up before conspiracy": problem in this case is that journalists do not understand EU process. In fairness to them it is not straightforward and in any field of politics something is said to be "done" at many different junctures: for example when it is politically inevitable, when it is informally agreed, once it has been formally agreed and then, of course, once it has actually been effected.

my comment was without political meaning : I have relatives who need to fly to minsk from EU on Saturday for family reasons, I'm just monitoring the legal status.

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#52

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

stanpinte wrote: post #26

This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021... "- calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;" decision has still to be made by the council, and then - to my understanding - implemented by all m…

> This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021...

The decision is taken. You are misunderstanding what you are reading.

The press release follows an urgent meeting from the Council. The Council is the reunion of all the EU heads of state. They have already agreed to the ban. The sentence you are quoting just means that they now have to pass the corresponding executive orders in their respective countries which, as you are rightfully pointing, has already been done by France.

Obviously the decision has to be implemented by all member states one by one. That's how the EU works. It's the case for every decision taken and law passed by the EU.

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#53

Post by iso1631 »

matkoniecz wrote: post #37
stanpinte wrote: post #26

This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021... "- calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;" decision has still to be made by the council, and then - to my understanding - implemented by all m…

Thanks, thanks for revealing that I should trust journalism even less than I thought. I now noticed that > The EU has decided to ban Belarusian airlines from European skies has "decided" not "implemented" or "started", so technically it is matching reality, even if misleading.

The BBC story is https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57236489

With a headline of "EU agrees new Belarus sanctions after plane arrest"

It states

> The EU has decided to ban Belarusian airlines from European skies after a flight was diverted to Minsk on Sunday and a dissident journalist arrested.

The specific release from the meeting: - calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;

Seems reasonable reporting to me, the EU has decided to do it, and is now implementing that decision.

Further in the article

> The UK has suspended the operating permit for Belarusian state airline Belavia, and EU leaders have called on member states to take similar action.

That the HN submitter changed the headline is hardly a damning indictment of journalism

(The headline of the .com version was the same at 6:27 GMT)

https://web.archive.org/web/20210525062723if_/https://www.bb...

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#55

Post by stanpinte »

ChemSpider wrote: post #47
stanpinte wrote: post #26

This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021... "- calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;" decision has still to be made by the council, and then - to my understanding - implemented by all m…

For all practical matters that is the same. Of course member states have to implement it. The EU is (still?) not one country. What counts is that the leaders of all EU countries agreed to it. So it will happen.

Let's see how it evolves: I think every country shall make its cost-benefit analysis, and the ones with nothing or very little to lose shall ban. I would bet on medium compliance.

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#56

Post by iso1631 »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #52
stanpinte wrote: post #26

This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021... "- calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;" decision has still to be made by the council, and then - to my understanding - implemented by all m…

> This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021 ... The decision is taken. You are misunderstanding what you are reading. The press release follows an urgent meeting from the Council. The Council is the reunion of all the EU heads of state. They have already agreed to the ban. The sentence you are quoting just means that they now h…

The misreading stems from the editorialising xendo did with the headline. xendo submitted "2 hours ago", so between 0629 and 0729 GMT.

The BBC headline at 0627 GMT was "EU agrees new Belarus sanctions after plane arrest"

https://web.archive.org/web/20210525062723if_/https://www.bb...

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#57

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

i think what is not quite understood is the show aspect of the whole story: the secret services of Belarus (and probably allied Russia as well) are trying to awe the population of their countries into obedience by setting an example: 'look, we can do everything'. Interesting that this is exactly the behavior that one would see from some street gang, it's not what one would expect from a state.

interesting detail: some civil rights activists in Russia are taking this as an open threat: https://gulagu.net/news/2021-05-24-746.html The gulagu.net project is stopping all activities inside Russia for fear of reprisals, since "the capture and arrest of Protasevich is bearing witness of the fact that Lukashenko and Putin are now no longer even trying to hide anything, and that they are ready to act out open reprisals against those they disapprove of. ... We understand that no limitations exist any more and that the secret services are literally ready to do everything."

"... с целью захвата и ареста Протасевича свидетельствует о том, что Лукашенко и Путин теперь уже даже не скрывают ничего и готовы действовать открыто с целью организации расправы с неугодными ... Мы понимаем, что более никаких ограничений не существует и спецура готова в буквальном смысле на всё."

i have the feeling that this will be a good test case; someone is trying to test the resolve and responses of the European Union. Interesting what will happen next (in other words: someone might be doing some integration testing here).

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#58

Post by tchalla »

matkoniecz wrote: post #22
planetis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) I am not supporting also this one, especially as it was a sad case of vassalisation Don't get me wrong I agree. > 2) Refusing to allow use of airspace is different from hijacking plane and abducting people. If someone is using "state piracy" only for the second one it is entirely defensible. Not much different the plane was forced to land in Austria. Also this was a diplomatic mission, unlike commercial flights…

Plane was not forced to land, but landed due to technical malfunction > pilots requested emergency landing due to issues with fuel level indicators and thus inability to confirm sufficient amount of fuel to continue flight Though problem was triggered by France, Italy, Spain and Portugal refused to allow transit. There is difference between hijacking plane using fighter jet and refusal to allow transit. Both with bla…

> Plane was not forced to land, but landed due to technical malfunction

Belarus also claims that the plane was landed due to a bomb threat.

France and Spain apologised to Morales/Bolivia after that incident.

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#59

Post by 7952 »

mam3 wrote: post #20

Why is there no one talking about some sort of military response like literally building a base at the bielorussian border with fighter planes that would prevent such equally military actions like that.

Imagine the roles were reversed. A country was building a base on your border to try and effect your countries policy. Would that make you back down?

Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies

#60

Post by 5ersi »

varispeed wrote: post #35

All bark no bite. Assuming they got help from Russia, the gas pipeline (Nord Stream 2) is still going as planned. Germany must be sweating right now, how to look like as if they are actually committed to any sanctions, but in reality to not compromise their little joint project with Russia.

Actually the one sweating should be Russia, because on the long haul (10-20 years), Germany is going to be energy independent due to massive investments (also subsidies) into renewable energy.

Most of the countries that largely depend on oil/gas exports (Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc..) are going to be facing a major socioeconomic crises in the next decades.

Post reply on HN