EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, on Thursday said the European Union would impose sanctions on Mali in line with measures already taken by the ECOWAS grouping of West African states.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had agreed a raft of restrictions against Mali on Sunday.
These include the suspension of financial transactions over the interim authorities’ failure to hold democratic elections next month as agreed following a 2020 military coup.
Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU defence ministers in the western French city of Brest that “the risk that the situation in this country deteriorates is evident.”
He said the EU move was also a response to the arrival of private military contractors from the Russian Wagner Group, whose members are mostly ex-service personnel.
France has thousands of troops fighting Islamist militants in the Sahel region and in December joined 15 other countries, mostly European states operating in Mali, in condemning the possible arrival of mercenaries.
In December the 27-nation EU imposed sanctions on Wagner and set up a new sanctions regime for Mali with a view to targeting the junta.
“The new sanctions regime was agreed and these discussions will now continue,” French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly, told a news conference alongside Borrell.
French officials have said consultations are underway between France and its European partners on how to respond and whom to sanction. Decisions are likely by the end of January. (Reuters
COVID-19: German police moves against false vaccination certificates
Police on Thursday began searching the homes of more than 100 people in Bavaria and other states in southern Germany who allegedly obtained false COVID-19 vaccination certificates.
According to the police statement, the public prosecutor’s office in Augsburg issued orders to the district court to search the homes and take blood samples from a total of around 100 people.
The police noted that investigations against a physician who was involved in “irregularities with COVID-19 vaccinations” prompted the search.
Some patients who visited the physician with the intention of receiving COVID-19 vaccination were allegedly given a fake vaccine without their knowledge, the police said.
Other individuals who visited the physician to “obtain a vaccination certificate without a COVID-19 vaccination” got it under mutual consent, the authorities noted.
Individuals who knowingly received a fake certificate were under investigation for aiding or abetting the issuance of inaccurate health certificates as well as for violating the country’s infection control act.
Xinhua
