Belarus and the European Policy: state of affairs, goals, perspectives (policy paper)

Summary 

FUTURE CHALLENGES 

Following the resumption of cooperation in mid 2008-late 2009 and the rapid development of the European and Belarusian relations, a new stagnation period starts in the political sphere. A period when quick decisions, making of the immediate steps and conclusion of public agreements were needed is coming to an end. The political process is transforming into a working stage of long-term implementation of decisions. For all the players of the political field the new situation is characterized by relative quietness in terms of public statements and open passages, and by the need to do the intense work hidden from public attention to a large extent. This carries a significant problem. The external freezing of the situation and the loss of dynamics requires attention to other processes: in terms of the introduction of financial and procedural tools of the Eastern Partnership, holding working meetings on the design of multilateral engagement, preparation of case-specific projects of cooperation between Belarus and the EU, the launch of standing bodies and mechanisms of the Civil Society Forum, the conceptual elaboration of further development of the Eastern Partnership, etc. These processes do not create tension in the information field primarily because they do not involve top political figures, however figures of the second or third plan. Accordingly, the changes are not obvious and it is difficult to track them. In this situation, the most vulnerable remain force-oriented cooperation and "instrumental approach", due to the fact that these actions are "behind the scenes”. It automatically makes the opponents of the Eastern Partnership and power-oriented "conditional" approach stronger, i.e. European cooperation in exchange for democratization. In this context, it makes sense to consider the interests and strategies of major players in their spaces: public policy making and working. Intersections between these spaces will be characterized by all the major tensions of the future period. 

INTERESTS AND STRATEGIES OF MAJOR PLAYERS 

Belarusian authorities. Interests and strategies of the Belarusian authorities with regard to Europe remain unchanged. The state is still interested in cooperation mainly in the sphere of economy, energy, ecology. It retained the old strategy of spitting the issues of policy and pragmatism on different levels of interaction with the EU. At the level of policy and public declarations they maintain the principle of "no conditions, no mediation” and politics is developed as a screen to show the public that the interaction with Europe continues and develops on the principles and conditions set up by the Belarusian authorities. The external policy of the Belarusian authorities with regard to Europe lies in various forms of symbolic minor trade concessions (slight democratization of election laws, promises to abolish the Art. 193-1 of the Criminal Code, etc.) aiming to maintain the visibility of the process of democratization and liberalization which is very difficult and moving slowly. In the meantime the repressive machinery is constantly initiated to verify the possible depth, intensity and location of those areas where the preservation of repressive practices do not put obstacles for the Euro-Belarusian cooperation. The last and the most important for the Belarusian authorities level of technical cooperation is reduced to non-public interaction of higher-level officials in the development and adoption of decisions on specific issues of economic, border cooperation and so on (infrastructure projects, loans, investments, projects in the Eastern Partnership, etc.). There are attempts to transfer all significant issues from the "top" political levels, to the "lower" levels of concrete technical cooperation. 

The European structures (European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe and others). Here it is not so important to distinguish between the different levels of competence and nature of their work and official status of the various European structures. It is important to note only the fact that, firstly, their policies are coordinated in some way (the decision of the OSCE on elections are the basis for decision-making for the European Parliament, Commission and Council, etc.) and secondly, the various institutions and structures are not homogeneous in their attitudes towards Belarus. While some focused on particular issues, others quickly resolve issues of political dialogue with Belarus. The complexity of reconciling between the different levels of interaction assigned to different institutions, leads to some unbalance in the EU policy towards Belarus. It also gives a fairly broad space for both the Belarusian authorities (it is possible to cooperate on some levels, and freeze it on the other), and other players (publicly focusing on the political issues and ignoring the working-level ones). 

The European policy was and remains ambivalent: on the one hand, it is clear that the policy of sanctions and conditions does not work and cooperation continues, on the other hand, it needs to "maintain face" and respond to human rights violations, to the lack of progress in democracy, etc. i.e. to indicate all the points that should imply imposing sanctions. Therefore, the European policy is also beginning to split to the level of declarations (the latest example - the resolution of the European Parliament) and to the not associated with the latter the level of real technical cooperation. At this point it is very important who the European institutions consider as a vis-a-vis in the working relationships with Belarus. In this capacity could be: the Belarusian State, the political opposition, the civil society of Belarus. If it all comes down only to the public bodies, we can assume that the policy of Europe will be framed within the principles of the Belarusian authorities ("no conditions, no mediation"). Europe is not agreeing with that and tries to incorporate into interactions even the political opposition (for example, talks about the Belarusian delegation in EvroNest in the framework of the Eastern Partnership). This leads to a rather strange situation. Since the political opposition does not have influence at all in the country, including it in a real interaction at least on some issues also seems little possible. The involvement is limited to the inclusion of opposition members in the consultations and meetings on the elaboration of public positions and declarations. Again, the actual working relationship occurs only with the state. From the first option it differs only that it creates the illusion of inclusion of alternative Belarusian forces in the political process. As a result the pushed by the majority of the Belarusian political forces, the "condition-based" principle of formation of the European policy becomes dominating, which in its turn leads either to a new freezing of relations, or to a cynical form of interaction on the principle of "say one thing and do another." 

The two variants of the European policy described above do not contribute to changing the situation in Belarus. A different approach is possible only when the civil society becomes the necessary party to any real processes of cooperation. Some steps have already been made in this direction (creation of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership), however there is still a way to go to the smooth process of inclusion of the civil society in the real interaction. In addition, most of the European institutions do not perceive civil society as a real player, preferring to traditional forms of communication and cooperation with the state and certain spectrum of oppositional political forces. However, the inclusion of civil society in the processes of working relationship is the only prospect of development of relations. In addition to the development of working contacts with the state it requires principal input into the intellectual and organizational resources. 

The democratic opposition in Belarus. For the moment being all the democratic opposition is apparently divided into two camps: the Movement "For Freedom" Mr. Milinkevich and his supporters (Belarusian independent block and others) and all the rest. The public strategy of the first is to build the institutional capacity of promotion and maintaining the leadership of Aleksandr Milinkevich. However, with respect to the Belarusian-European relations the Movement "For Freedom" is more focused on the development and deepening of contacts within the "instrumental" approach, although without much understanding of the basic contradictions and urgent tasks. The actual role of Mr. Milinkevich is to implement the functions of public voicing of the problems of Belarus at the European level. However, even this leading opposition group, being immersed in the current issues of the opposition struggle, still cannot fully integrate into the workspace of the Euro-Belarusian contacts. 

The rest of the opposition is focused mainly on the "conditional" approach. However, it absolutely falls out of all relevant domestic and foreign policy agenda. However during the time of political standstill they also receive certain benefits. The slow dynamics of real processes brings to the public level traditional for the Euro-Belarusian relations forms of interaction: the exchange of accusations. The center of public life in Belarus become repressions, human rights violations, mass rallies, non-transparent elections, etc. i.e. facts, always accompanying social and political life. European agencies have voiced tough statements concerning these facts that provoked a backlash of the official Minsk, which in turn affected the general state of relations and lead to an increase of conflict. In this situation, of course, the ‘face’ for all parties to the conflict could be saved, but no positive changes in the country would occur. This stalemate can be overcome only by the creation of the working mechanisms of dealing with the human rights violations in Belarus. This work can be conducted only with the development of structures of the Eastern Partnership and the Euro-Belarusian contacts within the "instrumental" approach. The situation of growing conflict between Belarus and Europe, the resumption of sanctions is only beneficial to the stakeholders interested in the situation of the country's isolation and the cessation of the development of the Belarusian-European relations. The interests of the opponents of the Eastern Partnership - pro-Moscow European forces and official Moscow itself - paradoxically coincide with the interests of the democratic opposition in Belarus, which adapted to the situation of fight against the regime, however is unable to fit into the workflow of the Euro-Belarusian cooperation. 

Civil society. A key subject of development of the European- Belarusian relations, as well as of changes in the country remains the civil society. In particular, the part of the consolidated forces grouped around the organizational campaign for the Belarusian delegation to the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership. The clear leaders of the process are the Assembly of NGOs and the Consortium “EuroBelarus", represented in the standing bodies of the Forum. The achieved consolidation is rather fragile and will be seriously tested for strength in the future. The pace of events slowed down: it is difficult to track the leaders and outsiders to the process - everything becomes less clear and obvious. For the part of civil society organizations, not deeply involved in the work of the previous period, the working process of the formation and launch of the mechanisms of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership remained hidden and not understandable. This automatically pushed them to the usual mode of action and the old strategies: organizations starting to flee to their private niches and lose interest in the overall political process. The prevention of centrifugal forces is possible only with additional incentives to the real process of designing of mechanisms for the participation of civil society of Belarus in the structures of the Eastern Partnership. 

After successful participation in the first Forum of civil society, participating organizations must implement all our plans and fulfill their promises. A failure to implement these plans will lead to the loss of the role that was attributed to civil society in the Eastern Partnership in advance. Solution to such operational issues as organization of the Standing Coordinating Committee and Working Groups of the Forum, bringing to reality of implementation of the proposals that were announced at the first Civil Society Forum, the inclusion of experts from civil society to assess and monitor the processes of cooperation within the Eastern Partnership, planning future (second) Forum, would demand from the Belarusian civil society high level of expertise. There is a catastrophic lack of such expertise and in order to find solutions for most of the issues leaders of the civil society would need to attract resources of "think-tanks". Such cooperation proved being fruitful for the Belarusian civil society in the previous period and should be expanded. 

OVERCOMING THREATS: PROPOSALS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

Therefore the main threats for the future periods are: 

1. A possible reversion to the closed situation of 2006-2008 and a new freeze of the European-Belarusian cooperation. It is possible when the European policy is locked within the triangle "Bodies of the EU – Belarusian state authorities - Belarusian political opposition”.
2. Dissociation and passivity of the civil society as a consequence of a return to the familiar forms of existence and activities.
3. Loss of influence of the civil society on the formation and activities of the Eastern Partnership bodies as a consequence of a failure while implementing the goals set up by the first Forum.

To overcome these threats is possible with the joint efforts of all the forces advocating for the Eastern Partnership in the "instrumental" approach. In this regard the priorities of the next period should be: 

On the part of the European structures: 

The main task: to organize constant communication between the representatives of the civil society and the expert community of the Eastern Partnership, and in particular with representatives of the Belarusian civil society. In this regard it would be appropriate: 

1. To develop and adopt a framework document, setting up rules and regulating partnerships cooperation (dialogue) between the European institutions, donors and civil society institutions with the Belarusian state and the civil society. The Paris Declaration 2005 could be used as a prototype for this document, however must involve not only the state actors but also civil society.
2. To set up a permanent collegial body (eg, Public Council, the Round Table, etc.) in order to maintain the dialogue, with functioning ad hoc expert groups, which would be empowered to implement organizational, methodological, legal and evaluation functions and would contribute to the development of partnership between Belarus and the European Union. The participation of such a collegial body is required at all stages of the development of European programmes: starting from analysis and design to the impact assessment and monitoring of performance at all levels of the inter-institutional collaboration. Setting up of such body is expedient in the context of functioning structures of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership and could be in the form of a standing committee for Belarus-EU.
3. To sign an intergovernmental memorandum regarding registration of the enlarged international programs of the EU in the territory of Belarus with the goal of removing the need for registration of individual projects within these programmes. Therefore a principle of notification would be implemented in practice instead the principle of granting permission, which is used currently.
4. To support the organizational, infrastructural and financial activities and initiatives of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership and its permanent working bodies. In particular:
1. To promote the organization of regular meetings of the Steering Committee (CSF Steering Committee)
2. To promote the launch of thematic expert working groups to develop meaningful proposals and concepts for the thematic platforms and the CSF
3. To promote the implementation of the recommendations of the Forum within the Eastern Partnership policy
5. To expand contacts and interaction with the leaders of organizations, in particular, to enhance diplomatic contacts with representatives of leading civil society organizations in Belarus.

On the part of civil society of Belarus: 

Main task: introducing of the working processes of the formation mechanisms of the Civil Society Forum to the public space. In this regard it would be appropriate: 

1. To create own informational inserts in the independent newspapers, on the European issues (frequency 1 every 2 months or less), which could be developed as a "European Day" on the radio, own TV Programme the Belsat TV Channel
2. To introduce educational programmes regarding the EP for a number of organizations, especially NGOs (eg, informational roundtables for civil society (thematic and regional NGOs))
3. To create an alliance between the Consortium “EuroBelarus "and the Assembly of NGOs on the basis of elected to the Coordinating Committee of the Forum of Civil Society representatives of these organizations
4. To appoint focal points for thematic platforms at the national level
5. To develop a mechanism of broad consultation for all interested organizations, members of the Forum and expert organizations
6. To launch the interactive platform for the State and civil society (perhaps in the form of "reincarnated Public Advisory Council")
7. To develop and expand the public and open dialogue within the CSO, in particular, holding a national Civil Society Forum (April 2010) therefore completing the process of formation of this area as part of the infrastructure of the EP at the national level.

On the part of the standing bodies of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership: 

Main task: to launch the mechanisms of the Civil Society Forum. 

1. Organization of regular meetings of the Coordination Committee (CC - CSF Steering Committee)
2. Launch multilateral thematic working groups (participants - delegates of the Forum; task - promotion at the national level, the level of the Forum and the level of structures of the EP of concrete proposals)
3. Launching of a website of the CS Forum. The site should include pages as www.eurobelarus.info as part of its pages in the EP countries.
4. Launching the mechanism of interaction between national experts and experts from the EP and the EU to develop common products on behalf of / for the CS Forum. In particular, the launch of thematic expert groups to develop meaningful proposals and concepts for the thematic platforms and the CS Forum (participants - experts from the countries of the Eastern Partnership and the EU) objectives:

• developing detailed thematic proposals and concepts (including the design of implementation mechanisms) for the thematic working groups, CSF and EP,
• the organization (if applicable) ad hoc researches

5. Establishing and launching of a group for coordination of work of expert groups: members - experts, members of the CC; objectives of the working groups as follows:

• to make proposals regarding methodology of work on substantive proposals
• to monitor and control bilateral cooperation through participation in the platforms and at the national level,
• developing and making proposals on methodology for monitoring and evaluation of projects of bilateral cooperation, development of the format of proposals and applied criteria,
• collecting and editing the work of thematic expert groups.

6. Establishing regular relationship between national platforms and between the coordinators of the platforms in each country of the EP

7. Launching regional projects of the civil society with the participation of representatives from different countries of the EP
8. Participation of delegations from other countries in the activities at the national level in order to enhance the context and adding more weight to these activities as part of the activities of the CS Forum.
   

Andrei Yahorau,

[email protected]