EU rejects Myanmar junta election as sham while keeping trade preferences intact

Myanmar's military junta is conducting the final round of a general election this weekend, a process the European Union has already dismissed as incapable of meeting basic democratic standards. The vote, staged across three phases since late 2025, is the first since the February 2021 coup that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and plunged the country into a civil war now entering its fifth year. For General Min Aung Hlaing, the election is intended to manufacture a veneer of legitimacy at home and pressure foreign capitals, particularly in Beijing and Southeast Asia, to normalise relations with the regime. In Brussels, the calculation is different: the EU has concluded the polls confer no legitimacy at all.

A foregone conclusion on the ground

The outcome was never in doubt. The junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) secured 86 of 100 contested seats in the lower house during the second phase of voting on 11 January, according to figures cited by state broadcaster MRTV from the Union Election Commission. Combined with the first phase, the USDP holds 182 seats. The third and final round on Sunday will only extend that dominance. Under the military-drafted 2008 constitution, the armed forces automatically control a quarter of parliamentary seats and retain authority over the key ministries of defence, home affairs and border affairs. Entire regions of the country have been excluded from voting because the junta cannot guarantee security; the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, an independent expert body, estimates the military controls less than one fifth of national territory.

Most opposition parties, including the National League for Democracy (NLD) which won a landslide in the last credible election in 2020, have been deregistered and barred from standing. Critics of the process have received prison sentences stretching decades. The NLD's leadership, including Aung San Suu Kyi, remains in detention. In this context, the EU's assessment is blunt. An EU spokesperson told DW: "The elections are not in line with international standards. The EU considers that the ongoing violence, restrictions on fundamental freedoms, mass detention, exclusion of key political actors, as well as the ongoing armed conflict in Myanmar, have created an environment in which elections cannot be free, fair, inclusive, and credible."

Sanctions hold, but trade preferences remain

Since the coup, the EU has imposed multiple rounds of restrictive measures targeting junta officials and military-linked entities, alongside an arms embargo. Those sanctions were renewed in late 2025 and remain in force until April 2026, a timeline that extends well beyond the election period. Kristina Kironska, an expert on EU Myanmar policy at Palacky University Olomouc, reads the renewal as a clear signal: "This suggests that Brussels does not expect the elections to produce a political opening warranting policy reassessment, which leaves little room for an immediate post-election shift in EU policy." Wouter Beke, who chairs the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Southeast Asia, reinforced the point: "Myanmar remains a crucial test of our commitment to international law and democratic principles."

Yet the EU has stopped short of broad trade sanctions. Myanmar continues to benefit from the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme, which grants unilateral duty-free, quota-free access to the European market for all exports except arms and ammunition. The numbers reveal the economic stakes: Myanmar's exports to the EU rose from €2.8 billion in 2019 to €4.3 billion in 2022, though they have declined since as the conflict disrupts production and logistics. Garments, footwear and agricultural products dominate the flow. The decision to keep EBA intact reflects a calculation that withdrawing preferences would punish workers, many of them women in the textile sector, without dislodging the generals, while also ceding commercial ground to competitors.

Washington signals a different approach

The bigger uncertainty for European policymakers is whether other powers will treat the post-election order as "good enough" for engagement. The United States, under President Donald Trump, has moved noticeably in that direction. In November, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would end temporary protected status for Myanmar nationals in the US, effective 26 January 2026. Secretary Kristi Noem cited Myanmar's "notable progress in governance and stability," including the elections, as justification for the refugees' "safe return." Around the same time, Washington lifted sanctions on several entities close to the military. In July, Vice President JD Vance's office reportedly met industry groups urging an accommodation with the junta to secure access to Myanmar's rare earth elements, which are currently exported almost entirely to China.

This divergence matters. If the US and key ASEAN members begin to normalise dealings with the regime, the EU's refusal to recognise the election outcome becomes a lonely position, one that could complicate coordination on humanitarian access, refugee flows and regional security. ASEAN has barred the junta from high-level meetings and blocked Myanmar from holding the bloc's rotating presidency this year, but Malaysia, the 2024 chair, indicated the group would review the situation after the polls. Sabe Soe, director of the Burma Center Prague, warned that "readmission of the Myanmar junta in a civilian disguise into the bloc could create discomfort in high-level political and diplomatic meetings but might not create any barriers for the EU's further engagement with ASEAN."

The National Unity Government's demand

From the perspective of the National Unity Government (NUG), formed in 2021 by ousted lawmakers and civil society groups, the EU's stance is necessary but insufficient without explicit follow-through. U Linn Thant, the NUG's envoy to the Czech Republic, told DW: "After the junta announces the results, the EU should respond with a clear and unified political rejection, making explicit that these polls confer no legitimacy on the military regime." He added: "Importantly, the EU should continue to align with the position already taken by the European Parliament and many international partners: that Myanmar's crisis cannot be resolved through a staged election, but only through a genuine democratic transition." The NUG advocates a federal democracy that would devolve authority to ethnic minority regions, a vision fundamentally at odds with the centralised military control the election is designed to entrench.

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