European court rejects 3 Belarusian delisting appeals

19 June 2026

The Court of Justice of the European Union has dismissed 3 appeals against General Court judgments which rejected annulment applications brought by Belaruskali AAT, its director-general Ivan Golovaty and its exporting arm the Belarusian Potash Company (BPC) – joined cases C-816/24 P to C-818/24 P.

All were listed under Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 765/2006 in June 2022 for supporting the Lukashenko regime in Belarus.

• Belaruskali was listed for being a state-owned enterprise, repressing Belarusian civil society by dismissing workers who protested against the Lukashenko regime, and paying dividends to the Belarus state.

• Mr Golovaty was listed for being Belaruskali’s director-general and for his role in dismissing Belaruskali workers.

• BPC was listed as Belaruskali’s exporting arm which received preferential treatment from the Belarusian State and earned substantial revenue for the regime.

They challenged their 2022 listings and their 2023 relistings (which relied on the same grounds as the original listing in 2022). Their annulment applications were rejected by the General Court. They all appealed, arguing that the Belarus government does not fall within the definition of “Lukashenko regime” – so paying money to the State is not supporting the regime – and that the General Court was wrong to find that they benefited from or supported the Lukashenko regime.

The CJEU dismissed their appeal and said:

• The Belarusian State falls within the definition of the Lukashenko regime: in Belarus, the people who make up the regime and the people who run the State and government are effectively the same.

• The General Court had wrongly treated Belaruskali as Belarus’s sole potash producer but its listing remained lawful because of the dividends it paid to the Belarusian State and the significant revenue it earned in a sector the regime controlled.

• Mr Golovaty’s listing remained lawful because President Lukashenko personally appointed him and instructed him to increase Belaruskali’s support for the State, he held senior positions in Belarus, and he benefited from his place within the regime.

• BPC’s listing remained lawful because its own export activities and the preferential treatment it received made it a source of revenue for the regime.

All delisting judgments are on our EU judgments pages.