A joint Declaration of the
Summit
of the Eastern Partnership Programme, held recently in the Czech capital city, is rich in the flowery language in the spirit of Montesquieu and Locke. “The participants of the Prague Summit agree that the Eastern Partnership will be based on commitments to the principles of international law and to fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law and the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as to, market economy, sustainable development and good governance”, states the Preamble. The statement is as formal, as devoid of substance, given that several States invited to participate in the EP have chilly attitude towards the principles of transparency, free elections and human rights.
While proposing the Eastern Partnership as a new instrument for the European Neighborhood Policy,
Brussels
diplomats had some doubts about the two candidates -
Azerbaijan
and
Belarus
, where there are obvious problems with the holding of democratic elections. However pragmatism prevailed:
Baku
is mining for Caspian oil and the Belarusian regime is important as a partner for the smooth transit of energy supplies to
Europe
. The EU has actually ended the relations with the Belarusian authorities after the dissolution of a legitimate legislative body in 1996 and amending the basic law of the country, effectively abolishing the principle of the separation of powers. On 15 September 1997 the EU adopted «Conclusions on relations between Belarus and the European Union», in accordance with it the European Union suspended the ratification procedure of the “Partnership and Cooperation Agreement” and the entry into force of the Interim Agreement on Trade.
While formulating the principles of the “European Neighbourhood Policy” the European Commission in 2003 presented a report “Wider Europe — Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern neighbours”. “The EU should try to involve Belarus in a measured and gradual process aimed at creating conditions for free and fair elections, and after achieving that goal - the inclusion of Belarus into the Neighborhood Policy, while not putting under question the commitment of the EU to the common democratic values”, says the document. Due to the absence of the positive dynamics in changes the country’s participation in the project «The Neighborhood Policy», bringing together 17 countries bordering the EU, has been rather limited.
“The Eastern Partnership”, proposed in 2008 was planned as a more specific programme of cooperation with the republics of the former
Soviet Union
, due to the fact that unlike the Southern neighbors of the EU they have other important priorities in bilateral cooperation. The interest of the EU in the Mediterranean region first of all means the fight against illegal migration and support of
Europe
in the fight against poverty. For the EU’s Eastern neighbours one of the priorities is improving governance, respect for human rights and improving the electoral system. These are the challenges put forward by one of the four platforms of the Eastern Partnership, i.e. “Democracy, good governance and stability”.
European diplomacy put forward a number of additional requirements for
Belarus
with regard to its participation in the “Eastern Partnership”. They based on the so-called “12 conditions of the EU”, which in autumn 2008 have been reduced to major five. Among them: lack of political prisoners; changes of the electoral law, the admission of independent newspapers to the system of free distribution; solution of problems with the accreditation of foreign journalists in the country; changing the Law on mass media; improving the working conditions of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), freedom of assembly and political associations. In addition, “in order to talk about the signing of association agreements with the EU within the framework of the Eastern Partnership, Belarus should have signed the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation within the European Neighborhood Policy, frozen in 1995”, declared in December 2008 , Jean-Eric Holtsapfel, Charge d' Affairs of the European Commission in Belarus.
The Belarusian leader was not rushing to fulfill the terms put forward by
Brussels
. In 2008, five political prisoners were released, however soon there were new inmates for politically motivated reasons. A subject of the reforms of the electoral laws in the country has been particularly painful: “expected from us actoins - to change the electoral code and the law on mass media - were absolutely not feasible. Our laws provide stability in the country”, said Lukashenko in an interview with Reuters news agency a day before the
Prague
summit of EP. While talking to the reporters he noted that there would be no “changes of laws aiming to break the electoral system, destroy the media, and give it all to the opposition”. The Chairman of the House of Representatives of Belarus (legislative body) Vladimir Andreichenko is in solidarity with the President, “the existing in
Belarus
the majority election system has justified itself”.
Recommendations of the EU to bring the Belarusian electoral system in accordance with the OSCE standards has provoked repeatedly criticism vis-à-vis this organization by the Belarusian authorities. Another burst of sharp debate took place in the autumn of 2008 when the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has not recognized as free and democratic the Parliamentary Elections in
Belarus
. Also, in April 2009 while addressing to the National Assembly, Alexander Lukashenko flatly stated that “The OSCE should get out from the crisis, in which it finds itself due to “human rights-twisting" in its operations, and increase efficiency, in particular in strengthening its role in the area of European security”.
A similar trend shows the reluctance of the authorities to allow the activists of the opposition parties to initiate amendments to the Electoral Code. The officials have hampered for more than two months the attempts of the democratic forces to rent a hall for the collection of initiative groups to collect signatures in favor of changing the law on elections. An application to hold such assembly in the open air also faced the refusal. According to one of the leaders of the UDF A. Lyabedzka, the current majoritarian electoral system does not justify itself, he advised to introduce a mixed (proportional and majoritarian) electoral system.
One of the conditions for participation in the Eastern Partnership programme is the evolutionary incorporation of the European legal norms into the national legislation. While considering the complex of the institutional reforms needed for Belarus, we were able to articulate them in the formula of the three “Ds”: decentralization of public authorities (as well as reform of local self-government based on the “European Charter of Local Governance”), democracy (free and transparent elections), de-ideologization of public and political life (as well as equal access to the electronic media).
It is obvious that the progress in the improvement of the Belarusian electoral system is more than modest, despite of the two visits in 2009 of the Expert Group of the OSCE/ODIHR. On May 15, the Head of the Central Election Commission L. Yermoshina told BelTA about some proposals to change the electoral law, taking into account the proposals of the OSCE. However she emphasized that the proposals “in no way related to any major changes in the current electoral system of
Belarus
”.
Therefore
Minsk
did not in fact comply with any formal (signing of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the EU) or political (fulfilling the five conditions of the EU) requirements of the European Union necessary for participation in the “Eastern Partnership”. Nevertheless, the signature of the Belarusian Vice-Premier of the “Joint Declaration of the Prague Summit of the Eastern Partnership” as one of its participants became a fait accompli.
In what way
Brussels
is going to work with the Belarusian authorities to establish “democracy, good governance and stability”, declared by EP while demonstrating his inconsistent diplomatic position?
Given the amorphous nature of the Eastern Partnership Programme (Summit of Heads of States to take place once every two years) and limited mechanisms for monitoring of compliance with the agreements, one can confidently predict the neglect of political and humanitarian component of the EP by Belarus. The “April thesis” of Alexander Lukashenko confirmed this trend: he said that the liberalization of the country is a purely economic goal, as “the conditions for changing the current order” will not be created. That is, the president made it clear that one should not count on the political reform. An opposition politician Nikolai Statkevich believes that out of interdependent elements of the “Eastern Partnership” the official authorities of
Minsk
would identify only those critically important for themselves i.e. the economy and trade, while ignoring the democratic component.
It seems that
Brussels
does not have a stick as a tool of influence over the ‘new partners’, is only a carrot. The recent trend shows that the voice of the EU is gaining power in the International Monetary Fund. A Romanian expert Nick Popescu thinks that “the European Union has supported the IMF loans to
Ukraine
and
Belarus
. The current world crisis makes cooperation between the EU and its neighbours even more important than it had been in all the previous years”.
The upcoming Presidential Elections within two years in
Belarus
will be a litmus test the effectiveness of the new Eastern policy of the EU. Without an institutional reform of the electoral system it would follow the same scenario as during previous years. However this time in order to ‘calm down’ the Belarusian ruling regime the EU-bureaucrats may recognize his electoral victory and preserve the existing political system, which is far from the European concepts of “fair play". Moreover, it is consistent with the stated in the communiqué of the “Eastern Partnership” “stability”, although far from the “good governance”. Paraphrasing a saying of a politician Alexander Tomski, one can say, “For me,
Belarus
is an important part of the European policy. All together we have to think about how to make it a part of the European political culture”.
Sergey Matselev, political analyst
[email protected]
