BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
17/04/2009
Go for the Climb, not the Summit
by TOL
Belarusians deserve more than indecision from the EU.
This might seem an auspicious time for a high-level European Union diplomatic visit to Belarus. In a couple of remarks lately, ahead of the Czech foreign minister's trip to Minsk yesterday to hash out the details of next month's Eastern Partnership summit, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has come across as conciliatory toward the EU and rather tetchy on the subject of Russia.
But even when angrily accusing Moscow of unfairly charging billions of dollars a year on oil and gas import duties and fees, as he told a Russian official in early April, or blaming the Russian cabinet for the slow progress in economic relations shortly after Moscow turned down a loan request, he's always quick to restore the balance. When he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev talked last week about Belarus' involvement in the Eastern Partnership, the EU's new program for six Eastern European and Caucasus countries, Lukashenka said, "I told him that while holding talks with the West, we never hold talks against Russia. This is not advantageous to us; this is harmful to us from any point of view."
Minsk has been on slightly better terms with the EU recently since freeing several opposition politicians from jail and allowing very limited circulation of independent newspapers. These steps have made a serious talking point of the question whether to invite Lukashenka to Prague for the Eastern Partnership launch party in three weeks' time. Coming at a point when the EU's democracy-building credentials in places like Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia are under a spotlight, the Eastern Partnership gathering could help set out a more coherent policy toward those states and the three others lumped together under this still-inchoate new EU program.
If it's to succeed, the Eastern Partnership needs to work on the individual country level - so that, for instance, Moldova is not held back by the intransigence of Belarus - at the same time as multilateral initiatives are pursued, such as the notion of a free-trade area.
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel reportedly favors the invitation to Lukashenka, against the wishes of the numerous Belarusian exile community in the Czech capital. However, the EU can do more for Belarus if the country's president does not join his country's delegation in Prague on 7 May, because his presence would be more of a distraction than anything else.
Lukashenka's recent "conciliatory" moves may signal a greater willingness to adapt his country's authoritarian, highly centralized structures to the more open and competitive setup that is the condition for closer integration with the EU. But Lukashenka is a strong, entrenched leader with broad popular support among the many Belarusians whose jobs and pensions depend on the statist economic apparatus built by the presidential team over the past 15 years. He remains the most popular and trusted politician in Belarus - although polls by the Lithuanian-based Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS) show some slippage in his ratings in the past few months of economic distress, and "did not answer" got more votes than Lukashenka in a survey of Belarusians' support for various potential presidential candidates taken last month.
OFFER TAILORED REWARDS
If Lukashenka isn't invited, it wouldn't be the first time: in 2002 he was pointedly left off the list of invitees to the Prague NATO summit. Since then EU and U.S.-backed initiatives to bolster opposition and nationalist movements in Belarus have done little to undermine Lukashenka's support base.
Shifting the emphasis of the EU's Belarus policy toward initiatives with broader-based support among Belarusians would be more effective. Education, particularly student and faculty exchange programs, is one such promising area. The authorities should also be pressed to invite the European Humanities University back from Vilnius, where the independent school took refuge after Minsk shut it down in 2004. In the longer run, Belarusian university students will benefit greatly by the country's joining the "Bologna process," which makes study programs and degrees portable across European frontiers.
Relaxation of visa rules is another step that could raise the EU's standing in the eyes of many Belarusians, who hear very little of the union in the state-controlled media. Environmental and health assistance is also very well received in Belarus, the country that took the brunt of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout and continues to pay a heavy cost in money and long-term health effects.
Skeptics are voicing concerns that, without the promise of eventual membership the EU stuck on its Western Balkan initiative, the union will lack the ultimate tool to keep the Eastern partners in line. In Belarus' case that is not necessarily a drawback, as another IISEPS poll suggests. When asked how they would vote if a referendum on EU accession were held tomorrow, the "yes" camp has held quite steady since 2005 at around 30 to 35 percent. But consistently a similar or larger segment of the public remains opposed, and just as many favor reunion with Russia. Maybe it's time to stop trying to drag Belarusians into the light and start offering them more in the way of tangible benefits.
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