German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned of “a long and severe spiral of sanctions” as EU foreign ministers met on Thursday to discuss further sanctions against Belarus. The Belarusian regime sparked strong reactions from the West after it intercepted a Ryanair flight flying over its airspace on Sunday and arrested two people onboard—26-year-old opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, and his 23-year-old Russian girlfriend Sofia Sapega. The EU has already requested airlines avoid Belarusian airspace and banned Belarusian airlines from the EU this week. That’s on top of sanctions against Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and other officials imposed last year over the August election that handed Lukashenko a sixth term and that opposition groups have rejected as rigged, as well as a crackdown on protests. The EU’s High Representative Josep Borrell said on Thursday ahead of the meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, that the lawmakers will discuss “the implementation of sectorial and economic sanctions” as “the personal sanctions …