Considered by many to be Europe’s ‘last dictatorship’ under President Alexander Lukashenka, Belarus’s relations with the EU have been in decline for several years, despite initiatives such as the Eastern Partnership. Giselle Bosse warns that instead of disengaging, the EU should continue its policy of critical engagement with the country by building the capacity of Belarusian civil society and being more realistic and specific about its policy goals

Bosse, Giselle

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blo gs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/10/10/eu-belarus/Russian Pre sid e nt Vlad imir Putin and  Pre sid e nt o f Be larus Ale xand e rLukashe nka Cre d it: Kre mlin.ruDespite souring relations, the EU should avoid the temptationto further disengage with Belarus and enhance its policy ofcritical engagement.by Blog AdminConsidered by many to be Europe’s ‘last dictatorship’ under President Alexander Lukashenka,Belarus’s relations with the EU have been in decline for several years, despite initiatives suchas the Eastern Partnership. Giselle Bosse  warns that instead of disengaging, the EU shouldcontinue its policy of critical engagement with the country by building the capacity of Belarusiancivil society and being more realistic and specific about its policy goals.Af ter several years of  gradual rapprochement and pragmatic engagement, EU-Belarusrelations hit rock bottom af ter rigged presidential elections in December 2010 and thesubsequent violent crackdown of  opposition protests by the Belarusian regime. Relations worsened in 2011and 2012, when the EU extended its sanctions on the regime and key economic actors. The Organizationf or Security and Co-operation in Europe also judged September’s parliamentary elections as neither f reenor f air. Not surprisingly, the EU’s institutions and member states have become increasingly f rustrated withthe regime in Belarus, which is of ten described as the ‘last dictatorship’ in Europe. Neither isolation, nor thenew ‘crit ical engagement’ policy with Belarus under the Eastern Partnership (EaP) launched in 2009 (an EUinit iative aimed at developing closer relations with the countries of  Europe’s east) appear to have had anyimpact on the government of  President Lukashenka. Yet, at the same time, the country’s managed economydepends more than ever on Russia to provide loans, subsidize energy supplies, and grant access to theregional market.In light of  these developments, there isa real possibility that the EU willf urther disengage with Belarus, orsimply put relations with the countryon the polit ical backburner untilsometime bef ore the next presidentialelections in 2015. That scenario,however, seems the least desirable f orthe EU. The (already limited) leverageover the regime would f urtherdecrease and disengagement is likelyto impact negatively on the (alreadydecreasing) support f or the EU amongthe Belarusian population. Instead off urther disengagement, the EU shouldimprove the ef f ectiveness of  its crit icalengagement policy with Belarus.Even though crit ical engagement didnot yield any signif icant results in terms of  democratic ref orm in the short term, it is important to rememberthat the policy was based on the idea of gradual change through engagement, which is essentially a longterm strategy. And indeed, there is much sense in the words of  Swedish f oreign minister Carl Bildt, whoargued early on in the EaP process that it was rather overoptimistic to expect that the EU would achievedemocracy in Belarus by ‘next Wednesday’. Given that overall context, crit ical engagement did also haveseveral posit ive ef f ects. First, it generated an unprecedented interest in Belarus within the EU, and with it agreater awareness and understanding of  the country among EU of f icials. Second, that awareness f urtherincreased dialogue with the Belarusian government, and with civil society at large. Third, the engagementgenerated additional f unds f or projects (albeit still very limited in scale and reach) which raised the prof ileof  the EU. Fourth, the EaP Civil Society Forum enabled Belarusian civil society to network moresystematically (although the polit ical inf luence of  the CSF as such is negligible). Fif th, Lukashenka didintroduce some ref orms, though these mainly concerned legislation pertaining to f oreign investments.Nevertheless, there are several reasons to assume that the EU is likely to move towards a policy ofdisengagement with Belarus. First, the EU’s current f inancial crisis means that the EU will become moreinward- looking in the next f ew years, and f inancial assistance f or external relations will decrease (or atbest stay at its current level). At an average of  €28 million per year, EU f inancial assistance to Belarus isvery limited, and incomparable to the large-scale loans that the country receives f rom Russia (or China)which exceed several billions of  dollars. Second, the EU’s f oreign policy agenda will continue to bedominated by events in its southern neighbourhood (Syria, Arab Spring countries), which has already led todecreased levels of  interest in the Eastern Partnership this year. Third and as already hinted at earlier inthis text, the EU’s leverage over Belarus vis-à-vis Russia is decreasing. Apart f rom the dependence onRussian loans and energy resources, Belarus has recently joined the Single Economic Space (SES) withRussia and Kazakhstan, and is likely to come under signif icant pressure f rom Russia to f urther integrateinto the Eurasian Economic Community (or even a Eurasian Economic Union by 2015).In my policy paper on ‘The EU and Belarus: perpetual tango all over again?’ f or the European Policy Centre(24 September 2012) I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of  the EU’s crit ical engagement policytowards Belarus, and its current two-pronged approach based on targeted sanctions against theBelarusian authorit ies on the one hand, while trying to intensif y dialogue with, and support f or, civil societyand cit izens on the other. Taking into account the geopolit ics and geo-economics of  Russia’s relations withBelarus (and with the EU), expectations of  what the EU can achieve in Belarus should be lowered. Lowerexpectations should, however, not lead to disinterest or disengagement. Instead, I argue in f avour of  acontinuation of  the EU’s policy of  crit ical engagement and outline f ive measures to improve the currentpolicy:1. The EU should continue to place the individuals directly involved on its visa blacklist. Sanctionsshould only be applied more generally if  the EU establishes clear criteria regarding which actionscount as support f or the regime and which do not.2. Member states and EU institutions should not circumvent their own sanction regimes, such as thepurchase of  dual-use equipment f or border assistance projects.3. The EU should strategically target and develop the capacity of  civil society over a sustained periodof  t ime. The Civil Society Facility (which aims to strengthen the capacity of  non-state actors) shouldf unction as a top-up of  existing programmes, not as a means of  disguising f unding reductions f orexisting programmes.4. There is no automatic guarantee that the EU’s engagement with the Belarusian authorit ies will lead tothe movement of  of cials towards democracy. However, if  the EU does place greater emphasis onbuilding the capacity of  Belarusian public administration in 2012/13, ef f orts should be made toimplement meaningf ul assistance projects.5. The EU could be more specic about the goals of  its policy. Are the sanctions meant to ‘punish’particular individuals f or human rights violations, to ‘annoy Lukashenka’, or simply to signal that theEU ‘is doing something’ about autocratic regimes in its neighbourhood? And what is the longer termgoal: to push Lukashenka to introduce ref orms, or regime change?This article is based on the European Policy Centre Paper: ‘The EU and Belarus: perpetual tango all overagain?’.Please read our comments policy before commenting.Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics andPolicy, nor of the London School of Economics. Shortened url for this post: http://bit .ly/OlsAYU__________________________________About the authorGiselle Bosse – Maastricht UniversityDr Giselle Bosse is an Assistant Prof essor in the Polit ics Department at MaastrichtUniversity. Her research f ocuses on EU policy and democracy promotion ef f orts towardscountries in Eastern Europe, with a particular f ocus on the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP)with Belarus. She has published her work in the Journal of  Common Market Studies,Geopolit ics, Europe-Asia Studies and Cooperation and Conf lict, and f requently presentsher work at leading think tanks in Europe, including the European Policy Centre and theTrans-European Policy Studies Association in Brussels, the Institut f ür Europäische Polit ik,Berlin, and the Finnish Institute of  International Af f airs, Helsinki.

Despite souring relations, the EU should avoid the temptationto further disengage with Belarus and enhance its policy ofcritical engagement.

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