Aliaksandr Milinkievich: Dialogue is the European opportunity for Belarus

According to the Movement for Freedom (the MFF) leader, the surge in repressions of the Belarusian regime against civil society has helped to develop a more efficient and consolidated policy of the EU in relation to Minsk.

The recent wave of demonstrative repressive actions of the Belarusian regime against civil society led to a renewal of discussions on the policy of dialogue between the European Union and our country. The issue of human rights violations – by the example of the officially unrecognized Poles Union of Belarus headed by Andżelika Borys – dominated in Brussels last week. Thanks to this, the following problems raised by us were extensively discussed in the European Parliament and in the European Commission: political prisoners; refusal to register the Belarusian Christian Democracy party, the Young Front movement, the Viasna (Spring) human rights movement, the Assembly of Democratic NGOs, and other associations; persecution of journalists, of the New Life church, and of independent activists who began their participation in the local election campaign.

Naturally, reaction to these events followed in our country, too. The overwhelming majority of the expert community still thinks there is no positive alternative to the dialogue, and argues about the ways how to improve the efficiency of the EU new tactics in relation to Belarus. A part of opposition leaders states that they have long ago warned “the naive Brussels clerks” of the inevitable fiasco of their actions, and that “the united Europe has betrayed its values, and impedes, with its policy, the development of the revolutionary situation in Belarus”.

Is it really true that the new approaches of the EU went bankrupt? I’m sure they didn’t. However, we should admit that there is a certain crisis and disenchantment. We declared at the very beginning that the dialogue is not guarantee but an opportunity. This is the opportunity for the European path of our motherland, for strengthening the independence, and for modernizing the economy of Belarus. The policy of opening is a long-term strategy which cannot yield instant final results. This doesn’t mean the adopted course shouldn’t be corrected. This course is not a dogma.

Let us remember the first steps of the EU’s new policy. It became clear after the Russo-Georgian war that the Kremlin began increasing pressure on its former satellites. The Kremlin will try to make them stay in the sphere of its maximum influence by any means possible. The situation in our country was desperate at that time – unreformed and uncompetitive economy with negative investment image. The imminent global financial crisis overlapped with the domestic crisis of the social and economic model which cannot exist without external subsidies. Indebtedness to Russia was becoming dangerously high. Moscow warned Belarus that in three years it will terminate its policy of “cheap oil and gas in exchange for promises”.

Mutual step-by-step rapprochement, i.e. conditional dialogue, proposed to the Belarusian authoritarian regime by the European Union, became a real counterweight to the gradual liquidation of our sovereignty. Thereby, the space of possible influence over the policy of Minsk was created.

I can’t hide that I felt some bitterness as did many of my friends who share the democratic views. How can one begin cooperating with the authorities who regularly violate human rights, debase its fellow citizens with fear and official lies, and destroy national identity? However, further self-isolation would lead to transformation of our state into a protectorate of our eastern neighbour. I think we should be guided in such situation not by the feeling of vengeance but by the wish to preserve our motherland and to ensure its real independence.

The objective of Brussels’ opening for new relations with Belarus was not only to persuade the authorities to liberalize the state system but also to give Minsk room for manoeuvre in relations with the Kremlin. True, it’s clear today to everyone that the regime is imitating democratization. However, market reforms –which our country desperately needs – are being made, though they are not always consistent. More importantly, one of the primary political purposes of the dialogue is gradually reached – the situation is created when the democratic world gets the possibility to influence the regime’s policy due to closer cooperation. The regime has something to lose in the relations with the EU now, if it rudely limits civil liberties.

The policy of personal sanctions and limited official contacts with Belarus didn’t yield such possibility of influence. Everyone clearly sees that the longstanding isolation of Cuba and Northern Korea doesn’t prevent their dictators – Castro brothers and Kim Jong-il – to use massive repressions. Sanctions mostly affect the economic condition of common people. The authorities in such countries would always have sufficient resources to stay in power and would even live in luxury while the nation is impoverished. In the case of Belarus, sanctions also lead to a serious threat of domination of the Russian capital with the prospect of statehood loss.

The serious flaw of the previous EU policy was that the support and cooperation weren’t conditioned by any specific and measurable obligations on the part of the regime relating to the liberalization of political and civil life. First and foremost, this means the absence of political prisoners, the declaratory principle of media registration, as well as of civil and political associations, freedom of the media, the right of the independent candidates to have their own representatives in precinct election commissions, etc. The authorities’ will to continue political persecution needs to be restrained by their feeling of inescapable loss of possibilities. And something could be lost – unfortunately, not only for the authorities but to all Belarusians:

• Fruitful cooperation with the International Monetary Fund;
• Ratification of The Partnership and Co-operation Agreement with the EU;
• Return of the preferences for Belarus in the trade with the EU;
• Cooperation with the European Investment Bank and with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development;
• Full-scale participation of Belarus in the EU programmes of European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership;
• Signing the Visa Facilitation Agreement between the EU and Belarus, reducing the cost of visas, and simplifying the visa obtainment procedure;
• Belarus’ joining of the Council of Europe, the Baltic Sea States Council, and to the World Trade Organization.

Ironically, the latest aggravation of repressions against the unregistered Union of Poles lead, to a large degree, to the start of developing the common and a more efficient EU policy in relation to Minsk. I know that Brussels –having analyzed the mistakes of the first stage of dialogue with our country – can develop the model of cooperation in the nearest future which would include totally clear criteria of democratization of Belarus.

Aliaksandr Milinkievich

Aliaksandr Milinkievich. The MFF chairman. Born in 1947 in Hrodna. Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Associate Professor. The Hrodna City Executive Committee deputy head (1990-1996). Candidate for president on behalf of the United Democratic Forces in 2006. Was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament.

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