New cycle of EU-Belarus relations: dialogue in spite of actuality?

The Centre for European Transformation has prepared a policy brief with the analysis of the current situation in the EU-Belarus relations.

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Eastern Partnership Summit in November, 2013 started a new phase in EU-Belarus relations: the EU moved from policy of freezing relations to the new engagement in cooperation. The previous cycle of “freeze” in relations started after the brutal breakdown of a peaceful demonstration in Minsk after the presidential elections on December 19, 2010. The key principles of EU policy towards Belarus during this period were:

• Visa ban and economic restrictive measures against some Belarusan officials and businessmen. These restrictive measures got the name of “targeted sanctions”. The list of people who are denied to entry the EU included about 200 names — high officials, judges, prosecutors. The innovation of this cycle is economic sanctions: visa ban covered some Belarusan businessmen suspected of financing the regime. Besides that, the EU frozen assets of three Belarusan companies and introduced embargo on arms [1].
• The EU claimed unconditional release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners. This condition had to be binding to resume the dialogue [2].
• Regardless of introduction of targeted sanctions and freeze of relations on high level, the sectoral dialogues continued their functioning. The EU continued to provide assistance (technical and financial) to ministries in implementation thematic projects — in the field of regional development, energy, border cooperation etc. [3]
• After the events of December 19, 2010 the EU increased its support to the civil society. By that moment the new European instrument (Civil Society Facility) became functional, as well as some ad-hoc programmes to support civil society were created (Civil Society Stability for Belarus). Besides the financial aspect, during this period the political role of the civil society as stakeholder increased. The Belarusan National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum was emerging as important partner for the EU. It was seen as agent for change and alternative voice of Belarus.
• In 2012 the European Dialogue on Modernisation with Belarusan Society (EDoM) was announced and launched. This framework was invented as a platform for communication, cooperation and partnership between three stakeholders (Belarusan political opposition, civil society and government — after it fulfills the condition to release the political prisoners) with the assistance of the EU aiming at developing reforms for Belarus.

This EU approach was called policy of “critical engagement” and before November 2013 the focus was on “critical” part as the need to fulfill the conditions in order to develop the dialogue. The ball seemed to be on the Belarusan court. However this set of measures did not lead to changes, the situation stagnated. Belarus was not responding the claim on political prisoners and ignored the only one open proposal from the EU — negotiations on visa liberalization. And it was again the EU who had to change its approach.

Ahead of EaP Vilnius Summit there was a struggle for the approach the EU should adopt, positions were fighting both inside the EU and between different Belarusan influence groups. Three main rival strategies could be fetched out:

1. Radical: no cooperation with Belarus until the Belarusan authorities fulfill the pronounced conditions.
2. Nomenklatura dialogue: resume dialogue with Belarusan authorities without fulfillment of conditions, put politically sensitive issues away from the discussion, exclusion of the civil society from the process of dialogue.
3. Public dialogue: establishment of tripartite relations EU — Belarusan government — Belarusan civil society and solving all issues important for the country exclusively through this framework.

During six months before the Summit the European Parliament was preparing the report initiated by the MEP Justas Paleckis with recommendations on the EU policy towards Belarus. All three positions were seen during the work on the report. The recommendations adopted by the EP appeared close to the strategy of the public dialogue. However the actions of the EU show that the EU chose another approach.

First, bilateral high level diplomatic contacts have intensified, after they were almost frozen since 2010. Belarusan authorities moved Vladimir Makei from Head of Administration position to the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs, the EU excluded Foreign Affairs Minister (in this case, Vladimir Makei) from the visa-ban list. After that number of visits of Mr. Makei and Deputy Minister Elena Kupchina to the European capitals took place. Thanks to this switching jobs Belarus was present on the EaP Summit with Minister of Foreign Affairs. Also return visits to Minsk of Dirk Schuebel, Head of the Eastern Partnership Bilateral Division in the EEAS (March, 2014), Gunnar Wiegand, Director for Russia, the Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, regional cooperation and the OSCE of the EEAS (May, 2014), Linas Linkevičius, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania (July, 2014) etc.

Second, EU and official Minsk started to negotiate “interim phase” of cooperation. According to the official position of Brussels, the aim of the Interim Phase is to determine the best future form of cooperation between the EU and the Belarusan Government on modernisation issues, as stated in paragraph 29 of the Declaration of the Vilnius Eastern Partnership Summit. Issues that have been already discussed: economic governance, privatisation, development of enterprise, trade, investment [4]. The touched issues of modernisation in the framework of the Interim phase do not include politics, democracy, human rights. The Interim phase of 2014 brings back Joint Interim Plan which was discussed by the EU and Belarus in 2010, before the event of December, 19. The Interim phase is a bilateral format between the EU and the Belarusan government, the civil society is excluded from these negotiations.

Third, the European Commission broadens sectoral cooperation with Belarus. Lardge-scale projects of technical assistance got support. The EU has allocated 12 mln. euro for the environment measures under the project “Green economy in Belarus”. As it is known by now, part of the funds will be put into the implementation of a pilot project to construct a wind power plant. Besides that, the funds will be used to improve in Belarus main mechanisms of green economy, especially to improve the institutional and legislative framework [5]. The European Commission has adopted as well a new programme for Belarus, which will promote healthy lifestyles, as well as local and regional development. The Programme has two components: International accreditation of testing laboratories for medical products and support to healthcare in Belarus (BELMED) — 8 million euro; Extension of the programme “Support to regional and local development in Belarus” (RELOAD-2) — 3,5 million [6].

Fourth, the EU has changed the format of the European Dialogue on Miderisation which was transformed from multilateral dialogue to the expert project drawing potential reforms. The third phase of the EDoM is implemented with the financial support of the EU and is organized as the project “REFORUM”. Under this project the experts develop the plans for potential reforms [7]. This has nothing in common with the platform for agreement of different positions between stakeholders, that the EDoM had the potential to become according to its initial idea.

Fifth, although the financial support to the civil society continues to grow, the political role of the civil society in EU-Belarus relations becomes turned off.

So, in a determinate sense, the EU accepted the informal conditions of the Belarusan authorities to “depoliticize” the dialogue, it means:

1. to move human rights and democracy issues from conditions to resume the dialogue to the category of “debating points”,
2. to exclude the civil society from the EU-Belarus cooperation (create two parallel tracks — EU-government, EU-civil society),
3. to develop the dialogue in politically neutral fields: economy, investment, transport, energy etc.

As for Belarus, it has finally responded to the EU proposal to start negotiations on readmission and visa facilitation. The EU sent its proposal in June, 2011 and only during the EaP Summit in Vilnius Vladimir Makei told about Belarus readiness to start negotiations. The talks started instantly — the first round took place already in January, 2014 [8].

Belarus has as well released one political prisoner — human rights defender Aleś Bialiatski (June, 2014). Seven more political prisoners remain in jail.

Is has to be mentioned that resuming relations by the EU has not been related to any principle changes in Belarus. Intensification of diplomatic contacts and development of sectoral cooperation go ahead without fulfillment of the condition to release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners, go ahead despite of the fact that in general the situation with human rights in Belarus has not improved.

Belarus as well started negotiations with the EU despite the fact that the latter has not lifted its sanctions, however Belarus had declared earlier that it would cooperate with the EU only after the sanctions are lifted. So, the negotiations between the EU and Belarus resumed due not to fulfillment of publicly claimed conditions but because of completely different reasons.

Reasons that pushed the EU and the Belarusan government to resume the contacts are:

1. Fatigue of the long-running crisis in bilateral relations. The crisis has been lasting since 1997 when the EU suspended the ratification of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. The Europe regularly tries to reload the relations and cycles of “defrosting” come, although these attempts have always failed: Belarusan authorities made such steps that made impossible to continue relations and forced the EU to freeze the cooperation again. The last cycle of “freeze” lasted for almost three years and did not promote democratic change in Belarus too.
2. EU lacks instruments to influence the situation in Belarus and lacks willingness to look for new approaches in its foreign policy. Length of crisis and repeatability in EU-Belarus relations tell that the EU policy is not appropriate to the situation in the country. Neither pressure during “freeze” cycles, nor engagement during “defrosting” periods do not allow to build sustainable partnership between the EU and Belarus. Nevertheless, the 15-years long crisis in relations, even the grave crisis in Ukraine cannot force the EU to revise its approaches and principles of the foreign policy. Despite of the resounding flop of cooperation with the Yanukovych regime in Ukraine, the EU adopts again the strategy of nomenklatura dialogue in Belarus.
3. Crisis of the Eastern Partnership. The EaP initiative has doubtful achievements: strategic aims have not been reached, the interests of the six countries have headily dispersed, only two of six countries are solid for the European integration. The Ukraine, which was seen as leader of the EU integration is nowadays at war, civil and international. Armenia in September, 2013 unexpectedly changed its vector from EU to the Eaurasian Union. Azerbaijan and Belarus remain nondemocratic countries and not reliable partners. In such a situation even limited success in dialogue with Belarus (launch of negotiations on readmission and visa facilitation, successful programmes of multilateral cooperation) can be put on the list of achievements of the Eastern Partnership.
4. Activisation of Russia and creation the Eurasian Economic Union. The new project of the post-Soviet reintegration, the Eurasian Economic Union, is gaining momentum. After establishing Customs Union, the heads of three states signed the agreement to establish the Eurasian Union. Institutional consolidation and increase of international stature of these entities, as well as increase of influence of Russia in the region have fueled concerns of complete drift of Belarus under political and economic Russian control.

So, Belarus and the EU are going back to the framework of cooperation during “defrosting” of 2008-2010 and policy of “engagement” without making critical re-thinking why it failed. Even more, the current cycle of “defrosting” in fact wipes out gains of the previous period, related to the consolidation of the civil society through the Civil Society Forum, National Platform and European Dialogue on Modernisation.

In perspective that could lead to either:

• Repeat of the cycle “defrosting — elections — repressions — sanctions”. In other words, current period of cooperation will last until any step by the Belarusan authorities that would be unacceptable by the EU. The next elections in Belarus are in 2015, probably usual tactics can be expected from the opposition and respectively usual repressive reaction from the government;
• Either to the establishment of EU-Belarus relations similar to format of relations with Azerbaijan. In case if such a crisis does not happen or the EU can ignore it, cooperation between the EU and Lukashenka regime could continue. Deepening nomenklatura dialogue means a modernisation programme for the government: broadening existing technical assistance programmes and bringing issues of human rights, democracy and civil society to the endless dialogue. This scenario would mean that Belarus should not expect any positive dynamic in issues of democratization, political liberalization, liberalization of spheres which are currently controlled by the government (for example, education, health), improvements in the field of human rights. The civil society will not be able to develop as independent public actor and will remain accessory instrument under public institutions and European cooperation programmes.