Judgment_paragraph 27 · Belaeronavigatsia v Council of the European Union (T-536/21)

27Secondly, it is apparent from the context in which the terms ‘responsible for the repression’ are used, in particular from the use, in Article 4(1)(a) of Decision 2012/642 and Article 2(4) of Regulation No 765/2006, of the wording ‘persons, entities or bodies responsible for … the repression of civil society and democratic opposition, or whose activities otherwise seriously undermine democracy or the rule of law in Belarus’, that the legislative intent was to target, by the general criterion at issue, in general, any person, entity or body whose activities seriously undermine democracy or the rule of law in Belarus. Furthermore, the use of the term ‘otherwise’ in the second part of those provisions demonstrates the legislative intent to regard the repression of civil society and democratic opposition as a type of activity seriously undermining democracy or the rule of law in Belarus. Lastly, the use of the term ‘activities’ is an indication of the legislative intent to target persons, entities or bodies whose activities seriously undermine democracy or the rule of law in Belarus because those activities contribute to that undermining, irrespective of whether or not there is an intentional element in that regard.