Participation of the Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership Initiative: Problems and Mechanisms

Common challenges of a deficit of democracy

Such countries as Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia suffer significant hardships in the field of democracy and human rights, which automatically generates serious problems for civil society’s participation in any international initiatives. 

1. Exclusion of civil society from the political decision making sphere. Decision making concerning a country’s participation or non-participation in Eastern Partnership, as well as enactments of certain bilateral participation programs, is accepted at the level of interstate interactions. The civil society is actually excluded from decision-making process on these questions. For this purpose, there are basically no legislative frameworks either in the international law, or in the right of the European Union[1]. In democratic countries, civil society’s participation is provided due to the presence of the system of democratic representation. However, in countries with authoritarian regime, civil society’s representation is not provided. This problem is especially vivid in Belarus where civil society has been consistently excluded from all representative bodies at all levels (it is, even though to a lesser degree, typical of other countries of Eastern Partnership). Thus, in the authoritarian context, a part of society remains isolated from the decision making process at the national and international levels. 
2. Absence of transparency while implementing decisions and arrangements. Civil society in the countries with a deficit of democracy cannot control the activity of the state. Thus, implementation of any decisions accepted within the framework of four thematic platforms (Democracy, good governance and stability; Economic integration and convergence with EU policies, Energy security; and Contacts between people) of Eastern Partnership, can be imitated if these decisions for any reasons do not suit the partner country. It is questions of the democratic development and protecting human rights, which are usually ignored by authoritarian regimes, that suffer the most in that case.  

Specific problems of Belarus

For Belarus, the question of civil society’s participation is additionally connected to two types of problems:

1) What to do with human rights infringements in Belarus and whether human rights infringements in Belarus are the crucial obstacle for the development of European-Belarusan cooperation and Belarus’ full-fledged participation in Eastern Partnership? 

2) What mechanisms are to be built in order to overcome simulation of the process of democratization and imitation of civil society’s participation?

At the present moment in Belarus, there are differently oriented understandings concerning rapprochement of Belarus and the European Union: 

• Cooperation with EU threatens the authoritarian regime’s safety, i.e. the power tests the degree the EU is not going to limit autocracy and stability of the political regime in the country. Belarusian authorities carry out an original experiment. Negotiating with the EU, they resort to single repressive actions and try to examine how far the Europeans can go in cooperation even if there are some separate infringements of human rights. The purpose of such actions is to determine the border of relative safety and freedom for any actions.

For civil society, traditionally oriented on Europe, the development of cooperation causes a number of doubts. They have to do with hopes that the common European values will be not forgotten in the process of the European-Belarusan relations’ development, that cooperation with EU will result in normalization in the country, and that the Belarusan authorities’ arbitrariness will be stopped. However, civil society is at the same time afraid that this integration will not limit the authorities’ arbitrariness, but au contraire will legitimize it. The facts of human rights infringements are considered by civil society not as some drawbacks, but as a parameter of the political regime’s general undemocratic character.

If these tendencies keep going, the process of Europe and Belarus further rapprochement can be as follows. If Lukashenko's regime finds a zone of its own safety, within the framework of this zone it will be ready to act in the directions of rapprochement, standardizations, legislation coordination, etc. Still, these will be formal-declarative actions. Belarus’ civil society happens to be beyond the process of rapprochement. In this case, not only the Belarusan regime, but also the European Community will indirectly put Belarus’ democratically-oriented public in a ghetto.

The European Union is in a difficult situation, understanding that Lukashenko will never be an EU full and conscious supporter, and that it can lose its steady supporter, i.e. Belarus’ civil society, by making it Euro-sceptical. 
 Possible ways to solve problems

1. It is impossible to consider human rights infringements as an obstacle for participation in Eastern Partnership. It is necessary to consider episodes of human rights infringements and lack of democracy in Belarus as separate cases, so that not to turn them into the crucial obstacle to Belarus’ participation in Eastern Partnership. On the other hand, these separate episodes need to be solved and should not stimulate Euro-sceptical moods in civil society.

2. All cases (episodes) of infringements need some reaction on the part of the EU official and informal structures. All individual episodes of infringements should become a subject of public hearings at the national level and be settled by civil society and the state. These public hearings can be initiated by structures of civil society. However, civil society’s weakness and the absence of mechanisms to settle relations at the national level with the help of a dialogue of the authorities and civil society lead to the state when the power refuses to listen to civil society. In order to participate in it, the authorities need to support initiatives of civil society backed up by the official and informal European structures. Only such a support can involve the Belarusan authorities in the dialogue.  

3. The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum can be organized as a public platform to announce and to publicly present cases of discrimination of civil society and human rights infringement in the country at the international level. Everything that happens inside Belarus’ national borders is nontransparent and not public. Therefore, none of the EU official (and even unofficial) structures has any sufficient bases for reaction a priori. The Forum’s resolutions will become the basis for reaction on the part of the EU.

4. The Forum should create the mechanism of a public control over the course of rapprochement and cooperation, as well as within the framework of thematic platforms. It is impossible to provide civil society organizations’ full participation within the framework of four thematic platforms (Democracy, good governance and stability; Economic integration and convergence with EU policies, Energy security; and Contacts between people) of Eastern Partnership because of the already specified reasons: first, the absence of any legal base for such a participation (even in the EU); second, the fact that Belarus’ civil society is excluded from decision making processes at all levels. Civil society’s participation can be provided indirectly only. The integrated mechanism for this purpose can be achieved by the following: (а) all member states of Eastern Partnership and the European Union must accept frame obligations considering the Civil Society Forum’s resolutions and decisions, react obligatory on them during the work of thematic platforms and meetings of officials of member states; (b) the states must accept obligations to coordinate all decisions passed within the framework of the initiative of Eastern Partnership, with structures of national civil society; (c) special lecturers are to be appointed on behalf of thematic platforms during the Forum; (d) to provide independent civil society experts’ participation  in the work of thematic platforms (Scheme 1).

5. It is necessary to have wide national dialogue platforms for civil society representation. The authorities of all six countries of Eastern Partnership feign the European standards. In particular, it can concern such phenomena as GONGOs (state-controlled NGOs) and the pseudo-independent mass media. In Europe, there are mechanisms to prevent such phenomena, but Belarus and other countries do not have such mechanisms. If not to take into account these phenomena, the Civil Society Forum will not be able to achieve its goals. Therefore, for participation of civil society representatives from Eastern Partnership member countries, there must be corresponding procedures providing participation of real NGOs, instead of GONGOs. Or, understanding that it is impossible to completely cut off GONGOs, it is necessary to achieve a wide representation of civil society organizations at the Forum. One of variants to solve this problem can become a creation of wide national dialogue platforms representing civil society. The Forum’s civil society representatives are suggested by national platforms (Scheme 1).

6. The similar format can only be accepted by Belarus if it is a common format of Eastern Partnership offered for all six states.

                                                                                         Scheme 1
Andrei Yahorau

[1] In EU countries, there is a certain movement aimed at legislatively providing civil society organizations’ participation in the decision making process at the political level (See European Charter of Active Citizenship // http://www.activecitizenship.net/images/stories/DOCS/European%20charter/European_Charter_of_Active_Citizenship_Final.doc )