Belarus-European cooperation: news from the field.

… When we were making up the inquiry for the interview on problems and perspectives of Belarus-European cooperation, we had mush to scratch head over formulation of questions to people who are likely to be negative about such cooperation. However our cautiousness turned out to be excessive as we found no such attitude in our respondents. All representatives of NGOs, public movements and governmental bodies polled under the inquiry, are positive about the cooperation between Belarus and Europe, yet with different enthusiasm and on different bases (from value to pragmatic ones) but positive in general. Yet this is the only question requiring such rare unanimity. 

1. Cooperation between Belarus and Europe at national level: view of situation

Belarus-European cooperation is an integral process including a variety of branches aimed at a common goal. But we should consider how the participants of the cooperation realize these goals, orient in situation common for all partners, how they correlate their activities with their understanding of the situation and how they assess development perspectives. Truly speaking, the perspectives viewed by our respondents are quite gloomy. Yet let’s start from goals and objectives.

The respondents have quite various ideas of goals pursued by Belarus in cooperation with Europe. The most frequently declared are:

• development of democracy and civil society in Belarus (probably, this also includes de-sovietization and overcoming Belarus isolation and, with certain allowance, ‘changing the mentality’),

• integration into Europe (in various versions – joining the EU, the Council of Europe, westernization of Belarus, integration with European civil society institutes),

• economical development of Belarus (including: development of economical links, investment, technology, market outlets etc.),

• solving a number of social and humanitarian problems (quality of life, environment protection, aid to children, disabled persons and so on).

Sometimes the respondents have certain difficulties to re-construct Europe’s goals and its interest in cooperation with Belarus. Nevertheless, most parties agree that the goal of Europe is ensuring its own safety and that specific branches of cooperation (democratization, propagation of European values, ecology etc.) are necessary to breed a “predictable and stable neighbor” who does not threaten the general safety of Europe. They mention also benefits for the economy and foreign policy, value of Belarusian experience for the Europe in certain fields, and one of the respondents thinks that this is according to their standards – “they can’t live well when somebody near feels bad”. 

In general, the level of goals of Belarus-European cooperation declared by our respondents looks quite proper. Yet there are some alerting aspects like representations “Europe is culture and after all, we are Europeans”, “I don’t know exact goals of Europe, I have never asked them”, “European goals are not declared”. Additionally, despite the declared necessity of cooperation and positive attitude to cooperation with Europe in general, personal attitudes of participants sometimes appear to be of contradictory and ambivalent nature (“We need to rethink the EU experience to understand whether we want to be friends or not”, “One of cooperation goals for Belarus is to join the European Union. Yet I am not sure whether we need to be there. It is worth thinking. On the other hand, what choice do we have? If we are not members of the EU, with whom shall we be?”)

Now let’s switch to the analysis of present situation in the realm of Belarus-European cooperation at the governmental level. Most respondents to not undertake duty (or responsibility) to reflect upon previous experience, yet their estimations of actual state are quite unanimous: with few exceptions, the situation in relations between Belarus and Europe is perceived as a crisis. According to various estimations, the beginning of this process dates back between 1996 – 2000, yet the main today’s stumbling stone are the notorious 12 points, which have caused quite ambiguous situation in the sphere of Belarus-European cooperation. Here the participants of cooperation process are divided into two parties. The first  one thinks that Europe should soften or even cancel its requirements if it does not want to escalate tension both inside Belarus and in the Belarus-European relations (however, all the respondents agree that European requirements are unapproachable in the nearest future and should be softened or redressed). The other party think that basic steps to solve the situation should be done by Belarus. Accordingly, different strategies are proposed.

Adherers to the first point of view put the most responsibility and hopes on Europe. The Belarusian party (i.e. the regime) also must make certain steps (or, to be exact – “little steps”), yet these should not cause dramatic changes and threaten its tranquility. What is required from Europe – to deal with economical and humanitarian cooperation, separate social programs from political ones, “not interfere in Belarus internal affairs” and at the same time to boost the number of programs, allocated resources etc.

The solution to the problem from the second point of view requires dramatic changes in the political situation in Belarus. The projects proposed in this field are of various degree of severity and realism, yet the need for “dialog”, “negotiations” and even “trade” at the top level is widely acknowledged (with few exceptions). The major problem here is with the participant of these negotiations from the Belarusian side. It is acknowledged that today there is one political actor in Belarus able to negotiate (yet sometimes represented in various bodies and with various degrees of blur: “President administration”, “the Parliament”, “the Government”, “Belarusian authority”, “the stat” – in general, “shadows of Belarusian power exercised by the citizen Lukashenko” ©). At the same time, most respondents are absolutely aware that it is impossible to agree with such a party on any real steps towards “democratization”, “change of legislation”, “establishment of civil society” and so on, thus the most realistic projects deal with “mutual trade” and “mutual concessions” rather than direct movement to intended objectives. However, two (!) respondents specified such actor at the national level – “democratic society” and “civil society” of Belarus, but the first respondent confessed that to start with, it must be formed, and the second respondent mentioned civil society just as a figure of speech. The need to build up such an actor (whether it is civil society, opposition or something else) is evident, and it would be possible to omit this point but we should mention the clamant absence of this topic in our respondents’ speeches. Maybe this is caused by Belarus-European cooperation specified as interview frames? Probably, the basic sphere of interviewed organizations is somehow related to solution of this problem? Yet the conclusions are quite disappointing.

Let’s try to make a more detailed analysis of this problem.

One of interview parts touched upon aspects of development of Belarus-European cooperation, analysis of conditions and specific actions that would facilitate or hamper this process. All factors mentioned by the respondents must be divided into two groups:

-- affirmation of actual status, i.e. conditions and peculiarities which present today and affecting (or will be affecting in future) positive or negative influence on development of cooperation process;

-- future tense conclusions about necessary changes (at various levels) which would affect the process of Belarus-European cooperation.

It should be mentioned that the very modal mood of answers to these questions in this section indicates actual situation in the sphere of Belarus-European cooperation. The absolute majority of answers on negative factors affirm existing conditions and today’s problems of implementation of cooperation both for the Belarusian and the European parties, meanwhile various changes that should take place are mentioned among positive factors of cooperation development. Put it otherwise, negative factors are existing and positive ones are what to be done.

The most frequent positive factor from the Belarusian party is interest to cooperation of various actors (“the authority, local administration, specific organizations, ‘the Belarusians”). However there is no unanimity about interest of Belarusian authority to cooperation with Europe: some respondents think that such interest exists, while others mention that the absence of interest in political administration to cooperation with Europe is one of the negative factors slowing down this process. According to some opinions, the interest of Belarusian authority in this sphere is constrained and caused by negative trends in relations with Russia, economical problems and so on (while the entire situation is described as a positive factor for the development of cooperation with Europe). The representations on interest to cooperation (at least in specific spheres) of local authority are more frequent, yet the efficiency of this factor is questioned by the very participants of European projects. When it concerns specific situations of interaction, it appears that local authority even having interest (actual or declared) to implementation of joint projects, does not take or cannot take any actions without approval “from the top”, and most often refuses to be involved into “ambiguous” projects at all. By default the “ambiguous” is everything associated with European initiatives and funding (up to ecology-related projects), and if the matter concerns educational, enlightenment or information programs, the response from local authority is 100% predictable.

It is reported that state officials are in an ambiguous situation: on one hand, the necessity to expand cooperation with Western partners and engage foreign funding are postulated at the level of state policy and decrees from above, and on the other hand, participation in joint Belarus-European projects is not only troublesome (taking into account the proliferating bureaucratic barriers) but also insecure. Therefore any initiatives in this realm must be first approved ‘at the summit’ and, secondly, are under strict control of the authority even in case of positive decisions.

Another factor facilitating cooperation development from the Belarusian party is its geographical (geopolitical) location. Besides, one of the respondents has expressed an opinion that the positive factor is that “the Belarusians feel they’re Europeans” and another positive factor is that there is a well-formed civil society in Belarus, which facilitates establishment of cooperation with Europe. Certainly, both the first and the latter could help development of the country  and improvement of relations with Europe but it is hard to understand what is the basis of such statements.

What must be changed in Belarus to lead out the situation in Belarus-European cooperation from the dead end and launch the process? Generally, quite global changes are offered as such factors: from “dramatic change of social-political system” to “change of legislation” and “opening the borders” (which are virtually identical in our situation). Some NGO representatives (and especially personnel of governmental organizations) put some expectations on the need for establishing cooperation with Europe at the “top levels” and, according to them, cooperation development could be facilitated by “European choice of Belarusian authority”, “strengthening the links between the Parliaments” (however, it is not quite clear between about which parliaments they are speaking) and, eventually: “there must be prudent people among the authority!” Also, positive influence on development of cooperation with Europe would be from democratization of society (two mentions), development of a “proper strategy” of cooperation, openness and readiness for cooperation (subject not specified), establishment of cultural exchanges between countries. Possible opening of European Commission delegation in Minsk was mentioned two times (however, it quite uncertain, see exact quotation: “Probably, opening a European Commission delegation in Belarus would facilitate… if it opens after all…”)

The list of factors negatively influencing development of cooperation with Europe is much longer and only two opinions concern possibility of further development of the situation, that is which changes could slow down cooperation in future – these are “strengthening of the totalitarian system” and “severe response of the authority to attempts of democratization”. Today’s factors negatively influencing development of cooperation with Europe can be divided into three large groups by domain. In descending order by frequency these are:

• obstacles at the level of governmental bodies (and at the level of state policy in general),

• development problems in the third sector and civil society in Belarus

• and, after all, the state of mass awareness in the country.

Additionally, one of the respondents mentioned ‘absence of political self-determination in Belarus’ as a negative factor.

At the level of state and governmental bodies, negative factors are detected both in the sphere of specific task-oriented (it is also possible to say “ill-intentioned”) actions that complicate cooperation with Europe (putting barriers before organizations participating in joint projects, harassment and pressing towards active participants of the cooperation process, total control of activities performed by third sector organizations etc.) and in affirmation of public administration system status and state policy being pursued (“bureaucracy”, “lack of interest to cooperation”, “legal nihilism at all levels of power”, “absence of confidence to European bodies in Belarusian authority”, etc.) In general, the most expressed opinions on obstacles before development of Belarus-European cooperation are more or less associated with negative assessment of state policy in this field. i.e. “Belarusian authority” is acknowledged the prime figure at the national level. The weakness of the third sector is acknowledged by some NGO representatives, for instance: “Even if all Belarusian organizations were united, they would hardly change the situation in registration of projects: the state and the civil society are in different weight categories.”

Despite this, the list of negative factors existing at the national level comprises only four opinions concerning the status of third sector and the civil society in Belarus (“absence of unity in third sector”, “absence of public associations acting as political subjects”, imitation of activity by certain NGOs, absence of political elite and experts in Belarus) and four opinions on the status of mass awareness of Belarus population (mentality, stereotype in thinking, diffidence etc.). This obvious bias could be interpreted as a sign of well-being and high degree of evolution in the third sector and the civil society but for the fact that they are mentioned among positive factors facilitating development of cooperation as rare as they are among the negative factors. If we recall that the state (represented by power bodies) acts as the main (and perhaps the only)  actor acknowledged to be able to influence the situation, we have to admit that neither the civil society nor NGOs as its opinion givers are represented at all (moreover, they are absent in reality and even in dreams, i.e. in the reflection on situation J).

Estimation of factors that would facilitate or hamper development of cooperation from the European side also does not provide grounds for optimism. Among positive factors that help cooperation today, respondents mention presence of political will for cooperation, “European democracy”, i.e. ability to take into account various opinions, responsibility of European partners, understanding of strategic and economical benefits from cooperation with Belarus as well as allocation of resources for development of this cooperation.

Necessary changes which would positively influence development of cooperation are:

• increase in number and variety of programs for Belarus,

• broadening “contacts with the civil society”,

• enhancing visa policy,

• development of adequate approaches (as an option – “new people responsible for Belarusian issues”),

• emergence of “interest to Belarus as an independent political actor” (the latter is not very clear to us).

According to the interviewees, the main negative factor that hampers implementation of efficient cooperation is European partner’s misunderstanding of actual situation in Belarus, its cultural particularity and the stereotype in perception of Belarus. This is associated both with common cultural factors (“difference of mentality” and “peculiarities of Belarus history”) and certain technology aspects in arrangement of the very cooperation process, which are insufficiently detailed. One of these aspects is absence of ‘literate analyses’ and monitoring of changes, which should be pre-set in cooperation programs. The second aspect is related to qualification and motivation of officials and experts who work directly upon implementation of joint projects. View of Belarusian cooperation participants on this are various: there are purely emotional opinions – “We need grounds for talks –not only a site and not only same inefficient experts who keep coming from Europe for ten years in a row!”, and many value judgments based on previous experience: “What impeded us in cooperation? –  European bureaucracy first of all. Secondly, these issues haven’t always been addressed by people competent in Belarusian problems. That is, the matter of competence also leaves much to be desired”, “Sometimes competence of local specialists is higher than of second-grade European ones, not the cleverest work in this sphere in Europe”, “Experts who come to Belarus stay for three days, see you for the first time and so do you.” One of the factors affecting this situation is the specific particularity of Belarus and inability (or unwillingness) to take it into consideration found in European officials and experts: “Very often we face insufficiently qualified and motivated work by officials who directly address these matters. The point is that working with problems in Belarus is “custom” and requires special attention, it is hard to plan and predict it, so this is inconvenient for any official because it does not fit in traditional patterns, reports etc. Thus there are people interested and ready to invent some know-how’s and exercise creative approach, but not always”, “And there are common officials in Europe who tend just to implement projects as there is money allocated for them, and these officials have no time to dig into our ideological peculiarities.” There are also quite categorical statements: “Change experts, unconditional full change of experts throughout Belarus is the first thing to do.”

The second (by frequency) factor slowing down the Belarus-European cooperation is bureaucracy of European institutions, slow pace of project registration and general “restraint” of communication with abundant paper flow. Additionally, there are opinions that Europe is imposing its interest on Belarus, that it doesn’t have integral view of cooperation process and thus cannot pursue a comprehensive policy towards Belarus and is “is tied to the chariot of Belarusian authority”. There are also accusations of lobbying interests of other countries at the expense of Belarus and that certain intermediating organizations are, choosing my words carefully, unfair (“Mediators – both organizations and experts from neighboring countries (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia) often get money instead of us rather than for us”).

Visa policy is also on of the most problematic fields often touched upon by respondents. Today’s visa policy evokes various responses from Belarusian participants of cooperation:

• bewilderment: “Sometimes the logic of issuing long-term visas is unclear – oppositional political figures get long-term visas without problems and common citizens have to stand in long lines. Why I as a leader of along-term (2 years) project cannot get a visa for the term over 3 months?”;
• indignation: “I feel terrible tension about various visa schemes they have set in all embassies except for the Swedish”;
• suspicions of insincerity: “Visas are an enormous barrier before development of cooperation. Visa obtaining procedures are becoming more and more complex despite all EU declarations of opening borders for common Belarusians”;
• foreseeing problems in future: “When Lithuania and other countries join the Schengen, it will be much harder to meet partners, arrange things and go abroad.”

Moreover, visa policy can be considered in a broader sense as a component of integral cooperation process:  “If visa cost rises five times and obtaining procedure gets more complex, this will put even greater obstacles before contacts between people. And the authority will build a negative image of Europe with success”, “The first thing I can think of is that visa procedures should be simplified, visa cost reduced, abandon the ‘pedagogic approach’ towards Belarusian citizens because the authority makes very good use of it”. Therefore respondents require “… to change visa schemes. Because now you can breakthrough anywhere except Lithuania only with help of your friends from the opposition.” It should be mentioned that the problem of visa policy inadequacy towards Belarus and the necessity to review it are also admitted by European partners interviewed under the project.

There is a standalone number of opinions according to which another negative factor in development of cooperation is Europe's support to political parties, “direction towards support of “political NGOs” (“Trojan horses” as one of respondents says) and Europe’s unwillingness to cooperate with “Belarusian authority”. With declared acknowledgement of “democratization” in Belarus as one of the objectives of cooperation and a direction of development, such statements look quite strange.

The ideas of specific steps to be made by Europe to overcome the existing negative trends are more or less common for Belarus-European cooperation participants. Several fields of activity can be pointed out here.

First, review and adjustment of positions of Europe and European institutions interested in cooperation with Belarus, development of adequate approaches, integral and comprehensive strategy of relations both with governmental institutions of Belarus and with third sector organizations.

However, the views of this strategy and priorities on which it should be based, are significantly different. In general, there are three quite distinct positions:

• Followers of the first view think that Europe should abandon any form of cooperation with the “Belarusian regime” and focus on broadening contacts with NGOs and the civil society of Belarus.

• Contrary to them, adheres of the second idea more loyal to the existing regime are sure that first it is necessary to “establish a dialog” with the authority, “divide social and political programs”, develop cooperation in specific directions (the most “safe” in terms of distance from political processes) and in general, “stay away from internal affairs of Belarus”.

• The third view is a search for tradeoff between cooperation goals and conditions of implementation; according to this view, European policy towards Belarus should contribute to dissemination of European values and westernization of  Belarus but be, so to say, not that straightforward. Economical pressure and economical benefits (the “good and bad cop” method) are viewed as an instrument for solving the contradiction between fundamental impossibility and the objective necessity to cooperate with the Belarusian regime. And actual cooperation in development of civil society and dissemination of European values should by implemented through development of NGOs, independent mass media, etc.

The second field of activity concerns immediate interaction of European institutions and funds with organizations participating in cooperation. According to respondents, the major steps in this field should be: review procedures of selection and registration of projects, involving Belarusian experts, involving representatives of NGOs and other concerned parties into program planning, increase qualifications of European officials responsible for implementation of specific directions of cooperation. It should be pointed out that according to some Belarusian participants, one of fields to be brought to special attention of Europe is forming unity in the third sector, “encouraging development of a consolidated position in Belarus”, which proves both absence of such unity and an indirect acknowledgment of Belarusian public organizations and associations’ inability to independent consolidation and establishing relations with one another.

Goals, objectives and conditions of activities by organizations participating in Belarus-European cooperation: problems and perspectives.

The next level of Belarus-European cooperation, the analysis of which is necessary to obtain an adequate idea of the process in general, is the “organizational” level, i.e. the level of activities by specific organizations of various profiles that participate in joint projects. Goals and objectives of organizations participating in cooperation that were specified during the interview, can be divided into following groups.

First, access to resources, first and foremost to financial resources. The funding issue is extremely topical for Belarusian NGOs and the European donations are often the primary (sometimes the only) source for public organizations, therefore it is small wonder that this position is ranking top in the list of goals (can’t help quoting: “What is your attitude to cooperation with Europe in general? – Positive. Because we make our living from it”).

Two following (by frequency) groups of objectives are associated with development of the very organization participating in cooperation (broadening field of activity, increase proficiency of organization staff, strengthening organization’s positions at international level, development of contacts, gaining weight at domestic level etc.) and “digesting” European experience and its utilization in development of specific fields of activity (entrepreneurship, female movement, ecology etc.).

A little less frequent are goals like European integration (westernization of Belarusian society, integration with civil institutions of Europe, representation of Belarus interests in Europe, training manpower for working in Europe on behalf of Belarusians) and establishment of democratic society in Belarus (development of civil society, civic education, enhancing legal culture etc.)

Going back to our respondents’ views on goals of Belarus-European cooperation in general, it is easily seen that the categorization of goals at the level of organizations is virtually the vice versa reflection of the declared priority goals of cooperation at the national level. There is an evident “switching priorities”, interpretation of which requires leaving analysis of general views of cooperation participants for analysis of correlation between ideas of various aspects of activity in each case.

The framework of Belarus-European cooperation requires that following aspects are taken into consideration: The Belarusian, the European and, eventually, the context of cooperation. i.e. joint activities aimed at the goal. This is an evident yet necessary assertion. (For instance, how in this context should we view statements like: “Goals (of cooperation) are not declared by Europe”? It is different if it is an opinion of a common citizen or even of Belarus President and quite different when this is expressed by a participant of Belarus-European cooperation. That is, goals of the partners are just unknown not but meeting our objectives. So what is our cooperation about then?).

Taking into consideration this framework and comparing the activity goals at various levels and estimation of achieved results, analysis of situation (conditions of activity) and proposed methods of changing, as well as value and motivation aspects, we can point out the following types of activity (or types of actors?) present in our empiric “database”.

The “niche specialty” type. Most characteristic of representatives from organizations dealing with ecology and humanitarian projects. This type features low degree of idea actualization on goals, objectives and problems of Belarus-European cooperation; ideas of cooperation goals (from both sides) are limited to economical aspects and “experience exchange” in specific fields of activity (in general, the terms “experience” and “dialog” are so frequent and appear in so unexpected contexts that look more like mantras). No reflection on situation in Belarus, specifies plenty of negative factors hampering implementation of goals, yet there is no correlation between them and the situation in Belarus (political, economical, cultural and historical). This determines the astonishing naivety in some statements (for example: on exchange programs (“cultural, historical (?), language, just any” – “they must be expanded to the maximum, if they do not let us out, let Europeans come to us”. Furthermore, probably as a result of exchange programs (since there is no offer of any other practical activities in working with people) – “I believe that in 5-10 years even in our back country they won’t say someone is “bought by the West” just because he cooperates with Europe.”) Obstacles and difficulties are mostly associated with bureaucracy and legal aspects of activity. Another obstacle is the “political component” of Belarus-European cooperation, which evokes aggravation and mistrust to Europe in Belarusian and local authority, which in return affects other “non-political” projects and programs (requirement: “divide political programs from social ones” arises exactly in this context).

Yet, as far as it is possible to see from interviews, ecologists and “humanitarians” are really committed to their job and are truly professing values they are striving to implement, however absence of realistic assessment of the situation and ability to go beyond their specialization does not allow to enhance efficiency and often reduces results to zero. This is also related to the fact that, trying to implement the notorious “European experience” within ecology and humanitarian projects, Belarusians sometimes forget that these projects are designed for Europeans and have such immanently integral conditions as presence of local self-government, communities, initiatives and responsibility of citizens and so on, i.e. all things to be recreated, restored or to be made from scratch.

However, within the framework of ecological and humanitarian activity, which is really supposed to be beyond political context, such “self-limitation” is explainable, but when such opinions are expressed by representatives of organizations involved in “development of civic society”, “protection of human rights”, “integration into the European educational system”, we have to switch to the following two types of activity detected in cooperation process: the so-called “imitation” and the “avoidance” types.

The imitation type is characterized with discrepancy between goals and values declared and implemented; for instance, with declared democratic values and affirmation of dictatorship in Belarus, any activities by Europe in support to programs aimed at changing the political situation are perceived as a negative factor. As a rule, individual opinions look quite rational and sometimes even reasonable but when we correlate them, the result is fantastic. However, there are also ‘medical cases’ – quotation: “Belarusian officials are afraid of cooperation with public organizations, they do not know what it will result in, what kind of organization it is, maybe this is a Trojan horse  - you let it in and they start to destroy things… officials are just people, they are afraid of making decisions, undertaking responsibility, we have to make this process safe and comfortable for them.” As a “strategy” of forming an efficient cooperation with Belarus, Europe is supposed to establish “mutually beneficial” relations with the official powers of Belarus, abandon attempts to influence political processes and focus on cooperation in the social and economical realms. It is offered to follow “the Belarusian rules” (apparently or indirectly): “We’ve got the vertical here and we have to remember this.” In the flow of democratic rhetoric sometimes you hear phrases like (long quotation but the context is necessary here): “there have been offers to work not with the Belarusian authority, which is supposedly illegitimate but with the youth and local officials, but this makes no use. The power has immediately tracked this and forced draconian restrictions on foreign trips for students – this was the response to another attempt to corrupt the youth”). Moreover, respondents postulate the necessity to abandon taking into account organization efficiency estimations by other public organizations (and in general, “advisors from Belarus”) since they are competitors in the struggle for financial resources. It can be supposed that exactly this struggle is the only objective in this type of activity.

The next type of activity found in the sphere of Belarus-European cooperation can be called the “avoiding” (the term is hardly adequate but we could not find another one). With quite adequate and rational ideas of cooperation goals and objectives at various levels, this type is characterized with a gap between general realization of circumstances in Belarus and coordination of own activities. There is an impression that upon switching from situation and strategy analysis at national level to the organizational level there is a certain subconscious “transition to a parallel world” where civic society, influential independent mass media, local self-government etc. exist (all this is absent in Belarus, according to the respondents). However, at the situation analysis level the reality brings back to the earth from time to time, yet unfortunately even this does not result in changing plans of further activity and consideration of actual circumstances[1].

And finally, the last revealed type of activity (least frequent in the list) is target-rational. This is characterized with distinct understanding and sticking to objectives of entire process and own place in the process, consideration of circumstances and restraints imposed by the context of European values and immanent problems integral in the basis of European good-neighbor policy, and the actual situation in Belarus. Search for instruments and means that can initiate movement in necessary direction is performed in accordance with this. First, there is a need to develop an integral long-term strategy of cooperation; integral means considering various spheres of cooperation and ensuring coordination and unity of all subjects of reformation from both sides; long-term means that perspectives to achieve goals are acknowledged to be quite distance in terms of time. One of the first necessary steps (at the national level) towards this is establishment of a system to provide analysis and monitoring of situations both in cooperation and in the sphere of Belaru’ movement towards democratic values and reforms; moreover, it is necessary to establish a system of independent experts both in Belarus and in European institutions and ensure publicity of its activities.

Certainly, the constructions above are of ideally-typical nature (i.e. you will hardly find a pure type in life), though the first two are nearly exact pictures of real cases (the most “ideal” is the last type L) but they can serve as an instrument of diagnosis for situation in Belarus-European cooperation and to adjust and develop programs of activities.

At the end respondents were offered to imagine they had chance to speak in the European Parliament to tell the Europeans anything they wished.  The effect was terrific. In most cases such “speeches” would offer affirmations of generalities and proposals of eternal friendship, or refuse to make contensive statements at all: “They already know everything”. A very small portion of problems and dramatic moments of Belarusian life and life of the third sector already spoken about during the interview, were included in these speeches. Remember that one of the reported problems is absence of Europe’s understanding of actual situation in Belarus and complaints that Belarus voice is not heard in Europe and there is nobody to speak for us.  So, make your conclusions.

---

[1] A little departure of the author. There are interviews that make me feel in a parallel world when I read them. It leaves an impression of another Belarus – quite European country, the biggest problem there is certain lack of international programs and absence of access to European funds. However, “some economical discrepancies and political disagreement” are casually mentioned at the end of these interviews but “both the European Parliament and Belarusian government are designed to work for people”, thus “cooperation should be based on positive trends rather than disagreement.” Truly speaking, I just envy this man. On the other hand (probably, because of envy) I wouldn’t send him to speak in the European Parliament.