Ulad Vialichka: Other actors defined foreign political guidelines in 2015 instead of Belarus

Neither ineffective European policy nor Russia’s aggressive behavior is an attractive guideline for a small country aiming at stability and security.

Which tendencies have been prevailing in Belarus’ foreign policy in 2015? Which grimaces has the Year of Monkey prepared in foreign policy?

Ulad Vialichka, the head of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, sums up the results of the past year and forecasts how foreign policy will be developing in the near future in the interview with the “EuroBelarus” Information Service.

- How have the Belarus’ foreign political guidelines been changing in 2015?

- Belarus’ foreign political guidelines have been suffering from a strong foreign dependence. By and large, Belarus hasn’t been defining its foreign political guidelines for itself; others have been doing it for Belarus; to a large degree these were Russia, situation evolving around Ukraine, new geopolitical initiatives, unexpected turns, including sharp drop in prices on oil, European sanctions against Russia. Belarus has rather been going with the stream of the geopolitical situation, trying to get benefit from the emerging situation.

- How have Belarus-EU relations changed? It seems that after the freezing of visa limitations on the part of the EU the official Minsk has done nothing to aggravate the relations; at the same time, it also does little to improve them. Is it the course for conservation?

- I agree that Belarusan authorities make no efforts to activate the relations even though they don’t try to freeze them again. I think that the conservation is a wrong description of today’s situation; we are rather going to have a slow progress that doesn’t commit any of the parties. We should expect the use of minimal steps tactics, such as in case with visa liberalization (Belarusan authorities announced that they had interest in it as long ago as at the Eastern Partnership Vilnius Summit in 2013 but haven’t reached anything by the end of 2015).

In its boring and lacking in energy relations with the EU Belarusan authorities are resolving one principal issue: preserving a certain political and strategic balance in the form of weak, but still existing western vector in its foreign policy. The authorities are pragmatically tuned and know that geopolitical circumstances in the region give quite a lot of opportunities for momentary benefits that can be extracted from the problems of their neighbors. It seems that the authorities are going to engage the same tactics next year. We can hardly expect conservation of relations with the EU; alongside with a number of serious regional and world challenges we won’t be prioritized by the EU. The EU is going to be active to the degree that the official Minsk is ready to be active. However, the EU won’t sacrifice its principal guidelines in the sphere of human rights, democracy, and supremacy of law.

- The end of 2015 came to be quite complicated in Minsk-Moscow relations. It has often happened before. Is the current situation a mere repetition of what’s already happened?

- We witness aggravation in Minsk-Moscow relations on the eve of almost every new year – this can be already called a new-year’s tradition. For now I see no principal differences between the current situation and the one that happened last year, apart from the change in topics revealed in disputes.

Former actions demonstrate that Russia doesn’t yet have tough requirements for the Belarusan regime, its political, economic behavior. That’s why Kremlin is ready to quite patient negotiation process taking into account mutual – Lukashenka’s and Putin’s – interests. If the need in total loyalty emerges, Moscow has leverages to talk with Minsk. But the time, probably, hasn’t come yet.

On the other hand, objective interests of Belarusan authorities and Russian Kremlin’s elites sometimes contradict. It is an objective process: similar problems appear with Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. There are no surprises; however, the situation and ambitions of Russia itself are changing, which can affect the level of contradictions’ radicalism. Although, in the near future there shouldn’t be such problem.

- Russia piled up problems; the EU doesn’t wait for Belarusian goods. That’s why Lukashenka is aiming at the “far arc; we are trying to sell something through Vietnam, Indonesia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America to the United States that has a very profitable market”. These were the foreign political guidelines described by Lukashenka at the meeting with the Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus. Will Belarus have to win the arc again?

- I see no innovations there: Belarusan authorities have always been building their economic policy basing on the actual situation – there is no strategy. For example, this year in connection with the sanctions against Russia as well as tough Kremlin’s reaction in relations with Egypt and Turkey after the attack and the downed aircraft the Belarusan authorities were behaving not as strategists, but as individual entrepreneurs, looking at the current situation and trying to get immediate use of it. The authorities of the country had no strategy; that’s why conquest of the arc or trade with quite far countries proceed from the actual situation. The tactics of immediate solution dictates such kind of actions. If the situation or prices on oil change, if economic activity restores in Ukraine or Russia after some time it will immediately affect the behavior of the Belarusan economic entities. All the more that it is not market, but nomenclature plan that is working there – we can decide how to redistribute economic flows in the Belarusan economy. Therefore, we can quickly reorient economy to these or those tasks, not necessarily economic.

- According to the latest poll by IISEPS the part of Belarusans, who want to enter the EU, decreased in December in comparison with September. The number of those willing to unite with Russia has also decreased. Are Belarusans choosing neutrality?

- With each new poll Belarusans are choosing new level of being pro-European or pro-Russian. These figures rather prove that there is certain disappointment both in political behavior of the EU as well as in weak support of the Russia’s political elites’ behavior. Belarusans like neither this nor that, though, I think, it doesn’t characterize the Belarus’ value geopolitical choice. There are a number of questions about the pro-European or pro-Russian choice in IISEPS poll, and each of them gives its percent. By and large, nothing’s changing: one third of population has remained a supporter of European values. There are some actual appraisals, which are reflected in distrust to the mighty of this world. Neither ineffective European policy nor Russia’s aggressive behavior is an attractive guideline for a small country aiming at stability and security; and the figures reflect that.

- How can geopolitical affiliations of the official Minsk change in the current geopolitical and inner-economical situation in the country?

- I have already formulated the decision-making principle – situational, not strategic answers to challenges. In our case, Belarus’ geopolitical course will depend on how the common political situation is going to develop. If Belarusan authorities will see some benefit, even the momentary one, they’ll act in a certain way. We shouldn’t expect new foreign policy, new strategy from them because of a number of reasons. We shouldn’t expect new policy from the current authorities. Foreign political arena is a certain area for reforms, too. However, during his inauguration Lukashenka has explicitly said that there’d be no reforms; so even if the changes take place, they’ll be objective and forced.