Roundtable discussion on EU-Belarus politics

“EU-Belarus puzzle: rethinking European policy” is the announced topic of the round work table that will be held on June 19, 2013 in Brussels.

The event is organized by the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend” and supported by Werner Schulz, the member of the European Parliament.

The roundtable is aimed at discussion of the EU policies towards Belarus and the possible ways for its adjustment.

As it is explained the announcement of the event, since 1997 the EU has applied number of different approaches to establish cooperation leading to democratisation, Europeanization and modernisation of Belarus. In 2008-2010 the ice seemed to be broken. Still the brutal crackdown of peaceful demonstration on the evening of the presidential elections in Minsk on 19 December 2010 became a new turning point in EU-Belarus relations. After that contacts with the Belarusan government have been frozen again and new set of restrictive measures has been introduced. At the same time these events so as the review of the European Neighbourhood Policy in spring 2011 gave a new impetus to the EU support to the civil society in partner countries and particularly in Belarus. New instruments have been put in place and new approaches have been elaborated. In this vein the European Dialogue on Modernisation was launched in spring 2012.

However, Belarusan experts Elena Tonkacheva, the head of the Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend” and Andrei Yahorau, the head of the Centre for European Transformation argue that there is big difference between European declarations and practice. Civil society remains underestimated as Belarusan development actor and stakeholder in EU-Belarus relations. Year 2013, when the European Parliament is preparing its recommendation on how the EU policy towards Belarus should look like, is the good moment to reflect on the work done by the international community and the Belarusan civil society since 2010 and beyond. Lessons learned from this period, best practices and failures, promises given by both sides and their implementation must be considered in designing European policy towards Belarus. All the more that Justas Paleckis, Rapporteur on Belarus from the European Parliament, will be one of the speakers.

The discussion will be followed by the presentation of the book “Afterword... Square 2010 through the eyes of Belarusian human rights defenders”. It is a unique analytical piece, result of monitoring and analysis of 14 politically motivated trials after the events of December 19, 2010. It puts the trials and the guilty verdicts in the broader socio-political context of contemporary Belarus. Book can be downloaded for free here (in English) or here (in Russian).

The round-table will take place on 19 June 2013, 14.00 – 15.30 at the European Parliament (room PHS 1C51).

Working languages: English, Russian.