On 7 July 2021, the Swiss government amended the list of designated parties in its Ordinance of Measures against Belarus, targeting an additional 78 individuals and 7 entities. These designated parties are subject to asset freezes, travel bans and a prohibition on funds and economic resources being made available to them or parties owned or controlled by them.
These designations follow the coordinated round of sanctions announced by the EU, UK, US and Canada on 21 June 2021 in response to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight by Belarusian authorities and subsequent detention of a Belarusian journalist.
This round of designations made by Switzerland bring it in line with the EU’s designated parties list and target individuals and companies with close ties to President Lukashenko, his family and the Belarusian government.
As anticipated, Switzerland has thus not (yet) gone any further in aligning Swiss sanctions with recent EU sanctions, namely the far-reaching sector-based economic sanctions.
