BelAZ and MAZ ask to be removed from the EU “black list”

As Interfax reports, the EU Court registered claims of two Belarusian vehicle manufacturers, BelAZ (OJSC BelAZ-Managing Company BelAZ Holding) and MAZ (OJSC Minsk Automobile Plant). Both companies are trying for the second time to protest EU sanctions imposed in June 2021, due to which their assets are frozen and cooperation for European firms is prohibited.

BelAZ and MAZ fell under EU sanctions back in June 2021, and in parallel with this, the US, UK and Canada expanded the sanctions lists. This was the EU’s response to the incident in connection with the emergency landing in Minsk of a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius on May 23 due to a report of mining, which was not confirmed. After this, Belarusian manufacturers began to have problems, in particular, BelAZ was unable to send auto parts to Bosnia and Herzegovina, since Lithuanian customs refused to let the cargo through and returned it to Belarus.

In 2023, BelAZ and MAZ tried to protest the sanctions, noting that they contained factually incorrect and unfounded reasons for the appointment, as well as incorrect indication of their official name in EU documents. However, the EU Court did not take these arguments into account and upheld the decision.

What connects MAZ and Lamborghini? The developer of Aurus came under sanctions from Great Britain. The United States introduced new sanctions against the Russian automobile industry: under attack from Aurus, the United States introduced new sanctions against the Russian automobile industry.

Now the companies have made a second attempt to achieve exclusion from the blacklist. This happened after on February 26 of this year, the EU Council announced the extension for a year, until February 28, 2025, of restrictive measures against Minsk, including in connection with support for the Russian Northeast Military District in Ukraine. The sanctions list for Belarus includes 233 individuals, including President Alexander Lukashenko, and 37 legal entities.

At the end of May, it was reported that the European Union may ban the supply of premium cars to Belarus – according to customs services, this measure will reduce the supply of expensive cars to Russia. According to the Financial Times, last year alone, 28 Maybach cars were delivered from the union state, although the import of such cars into Russia, as well as other luxury items, was banned by the European Union in 2022.

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