Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2017 to Question 115475 on Burma: travel restrictions, whether he raised Burma and formalised travel sanctions on Burmese military leaders at the EU Foreign Affairs Council in December 2017.

The situation in Burma was not on the agenda for the December 2017 meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council. In the Answer [cited by the Honourable Gentleman], the Government committed to considering additional measures with EU partners if the Burmese authorities failed to heed the calls of the UN Security Council Presidential Statement of 6 November. It was not possible to make this determination in time to allow discussion at the December Foreign Affairs Council, as the UN Secretary-General did not report to the Security Council until the following day.

Following the Secretary-General's report, we are assessing, with EU partners, whether targeted EU sanctions against individual senior military officers would be effective in changing the behaviour of the Burmese military.