Andrei Yahorau: Civil society needs a strategy to enter the EU-Belarus discussion

It would be foolish to insist on including the representatives of the civil society to the dialog, emphasizes the Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Belarusan National Platform.

On December 22, 2014 Minsk will host the conference of the Belarusan National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (BNP EaP CSF).

The conference will be dedicated to the problem of “Inventory and revaluation of the potential of the Eastern Partnership program for development of the Belarusan civil society”.

All national and regional NGOs, international structures, expert community, and media that are interested are invited to take part in the event.

On the threshold of the conference Andrei Yahorau, the Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Belarusan National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (BNP EaP CSF), shared the key problems for the BNP today with the EuroBelarus Information Service.

- Belarusan National Platform now should find its place and action strategy in the situation of renovated negotiations between Belarusan authorities and the European Union. The negotiations are going on, but Belarusan civil society doesn’t take part in it. I believe it should take its place there – if not today than in the perspective. Besides, it is very important for us that this dialog doesn’t become fully pragmatic, i.e. the issues of democracy, human rights, and common changes in Belarus shouldn’t disappear from the agenda. Monitoring the situation and preserving the process in this format should also become our goal in the negotiation process, so that all the above-mentioned problems don’t fall back into the shadow.

Andrei Yahorau emphasizes that “it would be rather foolish to insist on including the representatives of the civil society to the dialog without announcing our action plans”.

- At the conference we should all concentrate on the strategy that will allow us enter and take part in the dialog without losing the values and goals defined by the Belarusan National Platform.

Besides, the conference will consider structural changes that follow from the decisions of the IV Civil Society Forum that took place on November 20-21, 2014 in Batumi. It is assumed that the reform of the organizational and administrative structure will allow optimizing and enhancing the efficiency of EaP CSF’s work. It is planned to form five panels of working groups on key directions (democracy issues, human rights, economy, etc.) with the national coordinator from each country of the Eastern Partnership.