Conference resolution

Jean Erik Holzapfel: “Financial crisis will not affect the assistance to the Belarusian projects”

The conference was opened by Jean-Erik Holzapfel, Chargé d'affaires a. i. Delegation of the European Commission to Belarus. The European Commission is willing to improve the technical cooperation with Belarus in the areas of mutual interest as well as to engage all key players of the Belarusian society into this process. Mr. Holzapfel believes that “the development of relations between the European Union and Belarus could be and should be more pro-active”.

J-E Holzapfel underlined: “we would like this conference to address concrete issues and therefore we will make a block of proposals related to the programmes of cooperation between the non-governmental organizations and the local authorities in order to achieve development”.

While answering to the questions of the participants of the seminar, the representative of the European Commission said that the world’s financial crisis would have no impact on providing financial assistance to the Belarusian projects due to the fact that the budget of these programmes was drafted by the European Union well in advance. On the other hand, Brussels will address the issues of the consequences of such crisis for Belarus in order to make them less severe.

Belarusians do not have enough information about the European Commission programmes

Bearing in mind the high level of interest of the Belarusian society in the programmes of the European Commission, Belarusians are not well enough aware about them, about the opportunities for funding and they are not prepared to take part in competition among applications for implementations of projects Potential partners for Belarusian organizations in Europe also do not have enough information about Belarus and about the opportunities for cooperation with the Belarusian non-governmental organizations and the authorities. This sad result was voiced by Ms. Lene Petersen, the manager of the project on strengthening of the potential and cooperation between Belarusian partners within the European Commission projects.

Within the frameworks of this project workshops on elaboration of concrete project proposals based on the local needs and the requirements of the European Commission took place in all regions of Belarus. In 2007 31 proposals were submitted and 9 of them came from the Belarusian non-governmental organizations. There were two budget lines: 750 thousand Euro – for non-governmental organizations and 250 thousand Euro for the authorities (local bodies of self governance). There were zero applications submitted for a competition from the latter. Therefore Belarus received 250 thousand Euro less.

«There is no real local self – governance in Belarus»

A member of the Board of the civic organizations “Lev Sapega Foundation”, Aliaksandr Zhuchkou regretted that there were few representatives of the official authorities at the conference that could be interested as well in receiving European funding and using it for the benefit of Belarus. With regard to the issue whether Europeans understand the situation in Belarus Aliaksandr Zhuchkou said: “Due to the existence of different definitions and different understanding of these definitions, for instance it concerns ‘self-governance’, there are bewilderments, uncertainties and various interpretations. Meaning, for example that when we talk about local self-governance, the Belarusian authorities understand it as local authorities; while Europeans understand self – governance as an authority that is elected by the local people and is totally dependant on citizens that live in a concrete territory. Due to all these misunderstandings there are ‘hot’ discussions taking place today. Local self – governance in Europe has its own sources of funding that comes from the bottom level, while here in Belarus they are financed from the above, from the state budget. The local authorities, even if they do take part in the programmes, they still have to coordinate it with the higher authority. Obviously quite often it is easier for them to do nothing rather than start looking for trouble from above”.

Many activists of the Belarusian non-governmental organizations pointed out to a fact that implementation of many projects and initiatives of the society quite often faced obstacles of the bureaucracy of the officials. The Head of the civic organization “Belarusian organization of working women” Irina Zhikhar, in particular, said that “Local authorities de facto do not want to make steps forward towards cooperation in case an initiative or a concrete proposal is offered to them”.

The third sector in Belarus faces more challenges than one in Ukraine

Ms. Helga Pender, the Head of the Secretariat of the Representation Office of the European Commission in Ukraine compared the situation with the Belarusian third sector and Ukrainian: “Concerning general issues, the situation in Belarus is a more complicated one with regard to working conditions for the civic society compared with Ukraine. It is impossible to say that the civic society there is more developed, however things are a lot easier there and they are having a high level dialogue with the authorities. There are many debates there with regard to the issue how non-governmental organizations could take part in a dialogue with the authorities on political issues. This issue is not yet on the agenda in Belarus. Non-governmental organizations in Belarus are thinking more about existence and survival, i.e. how to solve the issue of the cost of the rent of office and in general where to find sources of funding. In Belarus and in Ukraine the European Commission has an intention to improve work with the civil society and to increase the number of programmes. We are not planning to reduce or to cut down financing”, ensured Helga Pender.

Uladzimer Matskevich: «We should try to communicate our realities to the Europeans»

The Head of the Humanitarian Technology Agency, methodologist Uladimir Matskevich is convinced:

«Given the today’s thaw in the relations of the official Belarusian authorities with the European Union, in case steps that will be made will not be ‘correct’, without understanding of the complicated Belarusian situation, it may put the entire third sector in a very complicated condition. It would be due to the fact that the EU policy that is suitable for their political system, ends up with different results in our country. In this sense the third sector in Belarus is risking today to find itself without any financial support, any influence and without opportunity to have a dialogue. Representatives of the third sector understand this problem and are eager to communicate the Belarusian realities to Europeans. However one should not hope that one conference will manage to break the bureaucratic barriers that exist in the European Union. This is only a small step in this direction and we will not move far without systemic work in this regard. There is hope that this conference will allow us to communicate our message and our point of view to the European institutions”.

Conference resolution

Ludmila Korsak