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> Bucharest mayor changes Belarus embassy's street name to Protasevich Street This is not just another case of an editorialized title on HN. It‘s much worse.
by axiosgunnar 5y ago
> Bucharest mayor changes Belarus embassy's street name to Protasevich Street
This is not just another case of an editorialized title on HN.
It‘s much worse.
The EU has been accused precisely that it won't actually do anything against the arrest of Protasevich, besides posting angry tweets for a few days.
The title of the article suggest it has actually done „something“.
But in reality it‘s exactly what we all fear, just „some guy“ trolling around on Facebook, giving the impression that something was done!
- 4ad 5y ago> it‘s exactly what we all fear, just „some guy“ trolling around on Facebook Well that "guy" is the mayor of one of the capital's districts, and she used to be a member of the european parliament. No idea if anything will come from this proposal, but it's not some guy trolling on Facebook.
- axiosgunnar 5y agoIt literally is some gal trolling on Facebook. Even if it were Merkel and Sarkozy tweeting, it is literally just tweeting. They could be actually implementing the actions they want, but instead they chose to just pretend to be doing something.
- fogihujy 5y agoThis proposal (which I find hilarious) is from local politicians in Bucharest and not from the EU. There are already _a lot_ of economic sanctions aimed at Belarus and each time new ones are imposed, it'll be successively harder to do more the next time. There's only so much that can be done -- The EU has already pretty much delivered Belarus into the hands of Russia and the EU isn't going to try direct intervention. Nobody wants a confrontation with Russia or a repeat of the Ukraine situation.
- pydry 5y agoThe EU is kind of stuck. Most of the options at its disposal would likely be made to drive resentment by Belarussians towards the EU and push them into Putin's arms. This is in direct opposition to the EU's strategic goals - it wants Belarussians have a favorable view of the EU and an unfavorable view of Russia. They've actually been doing fairly well at that so far. On the other hand, if they do nothing they look weak. RT and domestic Belarussian propaganda outlets are all geared up to tell Belarussians that they won't be able to get their medicine because the EU doesn't like that we used the same unconventional methods they used to get Snowden to arrest a domestic neo nazi insurgent (that being the line they're going with now) oh and by the way "they named a street after their hero". I don't think there are many good options here. Indeed, doing nothing, galling as it might be, might be the lesser evil.
- axiosgunnar 5y agoGood point. The winning move could be directing the sanctions at Russia instead.