Belarus — Towards a United Europe

1 BELARUS — TOWARDS A UNITED EUROPE Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe Wrocław 2009 2 Прага вясны BELARUS – TOWARDS A UNITED EUROPE Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe Wrocław 2009 Edited by Mariusz Maszkiewicz Co-operation: Marta Pejda Translated by Alyaksandr Yanusik Proof-reading: Simon M. Lewis The publication has been financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland ISBN: 978-83-61617-76-1 3 Contents Introduction Mariusz Maszkiewicz Belarus – towards a United Europe................................................................ 5 I European Programmes for Belarus Vyachaslau Pazdnyak Expanding European neighbourhood menus for Belarus: In search of a gourmet ...................................................................................21 Alena Rakava Evaluation of the previous programmes of the European Union ................ 42 II Belarusian Society and Authorities in the Process of Searching the European Way Andrey Lyakhovich Belarus’ ruling elite: Readiness for dialogue and cooperation with the EU .....................................................................................................61 Yury Chavusau Belarus’ civil society in the context of dialogue with the EU .......................82 Iryna Vidanava I’m Lovin’ It! Belarusian youth and Europe .................................................98 Ihar Lyalkou The EU in the platforms of Belarus’ political parties .................................. 117 III Belarus and NATO Andrey Fyodarau Belarus-NATO relations: Current state and prospects .............................. 129 IV In the Mirror of Sociological Studies and Political Processes Syarhey Nikalyuk Sociological data on attitudes to the European Union in Belarus ..............147 Valery Karbalevich Belarus-EU relations: New trends ...............................................................172 4 Прага вясны Yury Likhtarovich Ideological, historical and political reasons behind anti-Western rhetoric in Belarusian society ............................................... 185 V Belarusian Local Authorities and Self-Government vis-a-vis the European Union Anatol Lysyuk, Maryna Sakalouskaya Local communities and local authorities in Belarus’ border areas: EU-oriented ................................................................................................. 199 Alyaksandr Zhuchkou Readiness and opportunities for local self-government reform in the Republic of Belarus ........................................................................... 212 VI Belarusian Economy and the EU Cooperation Prospects Mikhal Zaleski The Belarusian economy’s ability to begin transformation in the context of its possible future entry into the European Union ..........231 Conclusion Alyaksandr Milinkevich Belarus needs active dialogue and integration with the EU ...................... 257 5 Introduction Belarus — Towards A United Europe Mariusz Maszkiewicz I The following collection has come together as a result of many conversations and discussions with Alyaksandr Milinkevich and his colleagues during the last three years — from the time of the 2006 presidential elections in Be- larus into late autumn, 2008.1 We reached the conclusion that Belarus needs the elaboration of a mature “European strategy”, one which would be neither a one-time act of protest against the Belarusian authorities, nor become another form of political opposition activity. What is necessary is to foresee and fore- stall the events and problems which Belarusian society may see as it glances towards a united Europe. Nearly half of Belarusian citizens visit EU countries and many study and work in the West. Sociological investigations are showing with increasing clarity the pro-European orientation of this society. The Bela- rusian economy is growing ever more strongly interlinked with the EU mar- ket, and through its closest neighbours — Poland, Lithuania and Latvia — is becoming increasingly subjected to the active forces of the globalisation process. It is becoming ever clearer that cooperation with Brussels is becoming the dominant vector in Belarusian foreign policy, and that this must be taken into account by both the authorities in Minsk and the political and economical in- stitutions of united Europe. The present collection of expert analysis is an at- 1 Discussions were also held in a wider circle of experts; these were documented in the Stefan Batory Foundation’s publication “The European Choice for Belarus”, available on the website (http://www.batory.org.pl/english/intl/pub.htm); in another example of these conversations, meetings were held under the College of Eastern Europe conference “Poland’s Eastern Policy”; see the publication “Polska Polityka Wschodnia”, Wrocław, KEW, 2008 6 Mariusz MaszkiewiczПрага вясны tempt to embrace the issues and key areas which determine the relationship between Belarus and its integration with Europe. Reaching a little further and a little deeper than current political activities and events, over a dozen experts provide their analyses on how well prepared Belarus’ authorities and society are to accept the EU as a close and lasting partner. This enterprise coincided with the appearance of some positive signals from the Belarusian authorities regarding their willingness to enter into dialogue with the EU. As of the middle of 2008, the representatives of the Republic of Poland and senior members of EU bodies have been assured by Minsk of a readiness to deepen their collaboration with Brussels. Events on a more im- portant and wider scale have occurred in parallel. The Polish-Swedish initiative entitled the “Eastern Partnership” has opened within the EU a new line of institutional activity in connection with its eastern neighbours, or, in other words, with the EU’s “Eastern Dimension”. United Europe, in its own well- understood interest, must open itself more to the countries of the post-Sovi- et region. This is firstly because these countries are situated within the geo- graphical and cultural-civilisational boundaries of Europe, and secondly because our collective European strategic interests demand it, in such fields as security, economy, communications, the environment, and many others cov- ered since 2003 under the European Neighbourhood Policy. The reaction of official Belarus to the Eastern Partnership initiative has been surprisingly positive. For the first time in a very long period, the authorities are speaking in one voice to the representatives of NGOs and civil society. Of course there is still a degree of uncertainty on whether the Belarusian authorities’ declared opening towards Europe will have a long-term charac- ter, and how the government, society, and ruling and intellectual elites will react to these “doors opening on Europe” as events play out. What factors will influence this reaction? What promises will they make and what threats will lie behind them? The works presented here are an attempt to collect together the questions, indicating the differences in approaching the problems and an exposing at least some of the doubts. Belarus — towards a United Europe 7 II After the collapse of the USSR, the societies of the post-Soviet region, on the whole, welcomed the widening of collaboration with the West with sin- cerity and hope. By the “West” I mean here not only the European Economic Community and political organisations (such as NATO and the Western Eu- ropean Union), but rather everything that together symbolised the prosperity, welfare, stability and modernisation of the Western countries. However, a few years after the changes had taken shape, prosperity had not arrived. Instead of reform and equitable redistribution of the state’s property, the so-called “bad privatisation” happened. Stability and security stopped be- ing the domain of the state, and were taken over by mafia structures and the “oligarchy”. Modernisation ground to a halt in an ideological desert, where it roams to this day, held up principally by the idea-less development of infor- mation technologies generally accepted as a kind of ersatz progress and mo- dernity. It is necessary to remember that in Soviet times, Belarus was recognised as the number one beneficiary of the communism-building process. It was in the Belarusian SSR that, in the course of 30 years, the transformation of the rural (in the language of the times, “backward”) person into the Soviet, “mod- ern” citizen was carried out with most success.2 As an effect of mass migra- tion, society was relocated from rural and small-town environments to new metropolises and industrial centres. The generations born in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s gained from the communist system the opportunity to receive an ed- ucation, improve their material conditions and career perspectives. That is, at least, how it was seen at the time. The degree to which this conviction was widespread is attested by the relative paucity of the dissident movement in the Belarusian SSR, as well as the high support to this day of the post-Sovi- et regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka. In connection with the high standard of living in the Belarusian SSR, acceptance of transformation and perestroi- ka was low, and at the very beginning of the ‘90s social expectations for the new era were roused much more than in other countries; similarly, the lev- el of assent to the Soviet system was higher than in the neighbouring repub- lics of Ukraine and Lithuania. During the Yeltsin years, disappointment in the 2 In 1955 the rural population comprised

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