European Union countries have started preparing a special sanctions regime against the participants of the coup in Niger, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday.
"We will support ECOWAS [in decisions towards Niger] we have expressed this from the first moment of the coup, it is up to them to take initiatives and decisions in order to counter this military coup and we will follow trying to implement the same kind of sanctions that they have decided. We are moving forward for an autonomous sanctions regime to take measures against the putschists. Work has already started and tomorrow the foreign affairs ministers will advance on that," Borrell said at a press conference after the EU informal ministerial meeting on defense in Spain.
A military takeover took place in Niger on July 26. Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum was ousted and detained by his guard. Following the coup, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) suspended all financial aid to Niger, froze rebels' assets and imposed a ban on commercial flights to and from the country.
In early August, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decided at a summit in Nigeria's capital Abuja that it could deploy the bloc's standby forces to press Nigerian coup leaders to restore the nation's detained president, Mohamed Bazoum, to power.