Sviatlana Kalinkina: Confrontation with Europe is a headache for Belarus

Considerable improvement of relations with Europe can happen only when people showing no prejudices for the Western countries come to power.

This opinion in the talk with the EuroBelarus Information Service shared the editor-in-chief of “Narodnaja Volia” (“The People’s Will”) paper Sviatlana Kalinkina.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows unprecedented fervor in its work on European and Belarusan relations these days. How far can Belarusan authorities go in its actions? Will Europe get caught on the constant promises the official Minsk makes? These questions were addressed to Sviatlana Kalinkina:

- I think that the actions of Belarusan authorities will depend on how weak the stand of Europe will be. As before that Belarus demonstrated impudence, rudeness and unwillingness to do anything, appealing to our “special route” similar to North Korea in its ideology.

But Belarusan dictatorship cannot be self-sufficient. It requires foreign support; both financial and political. Even if Russia can provide political support, this support leads to partial loss of sovereignty, which isn’t a part of our authorities’ plan. In this sense today the situation differs principally from what we had in 1994-96 and still up to the late 2000s.

That is why a lot depends on the lobbyists of the official Minsk in European countries, as well as on the amount of patience that Europe has. It is an open secret that a lot of influential business men are directly linked with the already existing and potential projects. So they put political pressure to this question.

- Are any other alternative solutions of the existing conflict of interests possible?

- For now the main issue is the release of political imprisonments, and such way of putting the question is correct from any side, out of humanitarian considerations as well. Of course, this demand is insufficient. Personally, I have no hopes that Belarusan authorities will start self-reformation. That is why all the negotiations with the Belarusan authorities aiming at making them amend electoral legislation or letting some members of opposition enter the Parliament won’t have principal influence on the situation.

I think that Belarus has to act in the same way all the countries with confrontation between the authorities and the opposition within the countries do: with the help of negotiations and round-table discussions. However, I don’t see any signs that such round-table discussions are going to happen. Both the authorities and the opposition are cautious in this question.

Indeed, the fundamental issue is what questions will be discussed at such round table and whether the adopted arrangements will be compulsory for the authorities to observe.

- After different diplomatic conflicts Belarusan and European relations were renewed at a lower level then that at the time before the conflict. Will this time be different?

- I can’t even see ideological platform for the improvement of our relations with Europe. Unfortunately, our politics is determined by only one person or by a small number of people at the most. And deep inside these people believe that the West consists of our enemies, who only think about how to impede our small country with the world’s oil reserves; no one can make them change their mind. And the relations will be preserved in this state up till the authorities are changed.

- Is it possible that the current hyperactivity of the Belarusan Foreign Ministry is nothing but the action for show meant for the report on the great amount of the accomplished work to the President?

- It can turn so. As everything hinges on the decision of Aliaksandr Lukashenka: whether the political prisoners will be released or not, whether they should get exonerated or not, whether to amend the electoral code or not, how to run the presidential elections and so on.

So it can turn that all the efforts of the Foreign Ministry will be destroyed by one person. Though I think that it is in the Foreign Ministry where people understand that confrontation with Europe is not a problem for Europe; first of all, it is a problem for the Belarus itself. Be as it may, but even Russia doesn’t disrupt relations with Europe, though this country is much stronger both when it comes to resources, economics and politics.