NOTE: A policy memo written in 2011 which is still very relevant 2 years later, especially as we approach the crucial November 2013 meeting of the EU's Eastern partners in Lithuania.
Abstract
After yet another rigged election and a severe crackdown of the opposition, Lukashenko’s grip on power is probably more uncertain than ever. With mounting external debt and a negative economic outlook, the autocratic regime will have to start a progressive privatization of state assets. Russian companies and political leaders are ready to embrace Belarus – under their terms. In this complicated political and economic setup, the EU must be ready to play its part and take the chance to increase its leverage on Belarus via a real, effective two-track approach.
Introduction: A troubled transition
Developments in central and Eastern Europe are not without repercussions on the international legitimacy of the Western community. However, 20 years ago, the situation of the West was so privileged that it could take a ‘low-cost approach’ to the international socialization of these countries (Schimmelfennig, 2000). And, globally speaking, the European Union’s efforts to transform Central and Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War through economic and political reforms have been notably successful, even having some effect on political and economic reforms in former Soviet republics as Ukraine and Moldova (Missiroli, 2007). However, it almost completely failed to do so with the regime and population of Belarus.
Relations between Europe and Belarus looked promising just after the end of the Cold War. The European Community recognized Belarus’s independence in December 1991, and until 1994 relations were based on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) concluded with the USSR in 1989. In 1995, the EC and Belarus signed a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) as well as an Interim Trade Agreement. However, the positive trend in EU–Belarus relations came to an end between 1994 and 1997, following President Lukashenko’s 1996 constitutional amendment and the increasing repression of the opposition, independent media and judiciary. In 1997, the European Council suspended the process of ratification of the PCA and restricted all political contacts to below ministerial level.
In 2002/03 the EU began to develop the ‘New neighbourhood strategy’; it did not, however, present a clear strategy for engagement with Belarus. Between 2004 and 2006, the EU started drafting Country Reports and Action Plans for the implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy, again excluding Belarus, Brussels’ direct response to the establishment of an authoritarian regime. In fact, Belarus is among the few states in Europe that have neither asked for membership in the European Union nor received such offer by the EU.
In 2006, the European Commission launched a document defining ‘What the EU could bring to Belarus’ if it implemented measures leading to democratization and respect for human rights and the rule of law. However, the 2006 presidential elections, considered unfair and severely rigged, brought an aftermath of widespread repression after the ensuing demonstrations.
In the run-up to the election on December 2010, in which he confronted a disunited opposition, Lukashenko’s prospects looked bright. Some of the gaping holes in Belarus’ budget had been filled thanks to a last-minute pre-election deal with Russia on crude oil duties. The EU, meanwhile, showed its readiness to expand its engagement with Belarus: in exchange for fair elections, Minsk was offered loans and grants worth €3.5 billion and the intensification of political dialogue. In other words, economic relief and better relations with Brussels for Lukashenko to play his old game of balance between East and West and decrease his over-dependence on Russia.
Post-election hangover
The outcome of the election, although predictable, was marred by serious manipulation (Lukashenko claimed an unrealistic 79% of the votes), violent protests (allegedly sparked by loyalist thugs) and a severe crackdown on opposition candidates. International reaction ensued: a stunned EU withdrew its pre-election offer, reinstated travel bans and studied imposing further sanctions.
However, consequences of the latest repressive wave by the Belorussian regime might pale compared to the serious economic pressures it faces, including an upcoming gradual privatization of state assets, which will be the most important test of Lukashenko’s ability to keep both the elite and society under control. In that context, the post-election crackdown has to be interpreted as a sign of the internal divisions and weaknesses of the system. In fact, splits within the regime have become increasingly visible since the last election in 2006, particularly as growing economic pressure increases the likelihood of a future privatization spree. The security services – the siloviki – stand to lose heavily if there is a successful reconciliation between Belarus and the West (Jarábik, Kobzova and Wilson, 2011).
As pointed out by IMF experts, Lukashenko's socially oriented and centrally planned economic policies appear to be self-defeating: growth and extensive social benefits are no longer compatible. This approach is backed up by several telling figures: foreign debt skyrocketed from zero in 2006 to 52% of GDP (or $24.8 billion) in December 2010. Belarus faces an annual balance of payments deficit of $7 billion, adding to the $5 billion deficit in 2009 and the $6.5 billion accumulated in 2008 (CIA: The World Factbook, 2011). According to several economists, populist measures adopted by Lukashenko in the run-up to the 2010 vote – raising salaries in the public sector – added to the pernicious effects of the global downturn.
Belarus has spent 20% of its hard-currency reserves since the beginning of the present year and implemented a partial currency devaluation at the end of March. Trading in foreign currency has been restricted. From 1 January 2011, the government increased the price of gas (by 12 percent), heat (by 15 percent) and electricity (by 10-15 percent), mainly for businesses. The pre-election deal with Russia, which allowed Russian crude oil to be imported again to Belarus duty-free, was already threatening to unravel in January. Capping it all, Russia has been raising the rates it charges Belarus for gas: from $187 dollar per 1,000 cubic metres in 2010 to $223 at the beginning of 2011, reaching $244 just a few months later.
The Russian big brother
According to Clelia Rontoyanni, an analyst of Belarusian foreign policy, ‘to the extent that Belarus has an international role, it has been primarily as Russia’s closest and most reliable ally.’ However, it seems that Moscow is becoming increasingly frustrated with its ally (Jarábik, 2011).
After seven decades as a constituent republic of the USSR, Belarus attained its independence in 1991, which was immediately recognized by the European Communities. It has since retained closer political and economic ties to Russia than any of the other former Soviet republics – which has, in turn, shaped its relations with Brussels.
The Commonwealth of Russia and Belarus was created on April 1996. One year later, the ‘Treaty on the Union between Belarus and Russia’ was signed, and the Commonwealth became the Union of Belarus and Russia. However, this political experiment has not yielded tangible results – customs controls were restored in 2001 – and its nature still remains vague. On 1 January 2010, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan launched a customs union, with unified trade regulations and customs codes still under negotiation. In December 2010, those same three countries signed an agreement to form a Common Economic Space.
Russia has long been pushing Minsk to sell off key state assets – namely oil refineries, chemical plants, oil and gas pipelines, and machinery plants – and to open its markets to Russian goods, scrapping trade barriers that still exist despite the fact that the two countries are part of the above-mentioned customs union. Although Belarus has so far resisted such calls[1], Minsks’s position vis-à-vis Moscow is of undisputed weakness: its economic dependence on Russia is almost absolute. Via the subsidized import of oil and gas, which Minsk can then resell at market prices, Russia is actually pumping $8 billion annually to the Belarusian economy.
However, Belarus not only looks East: in fact, it is also becoming a factor that influences the security of the European Union as a whole (Vitkus, 2006).
EU policy towards Belarus: a difficult balancing act
In its official statements, the Union continuously underlines the ‘twin-track’ nature of its approach towards Belarus, based on strict conditionality vis-à-vis the regime and, at the same time, on the promise to support and ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the Belarusian population (General Affairs and External Relations Council 2005, 2006). At the same time, the Commission has been keen to highlight the security threats emanating from Belarus, including illegal immigration, cross-border crime and the security of gas transit. Therefore, both ‘values’ and ‘security’ are central to the Union’s approach towards Belarus (Bosse, 2009), thus creating highly contested and potentially contradictory social constructions (Neumann, 1994)[2] that undermine the EU’s credibility in the country.
Action Programmes under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) guide the EU’s assistance to Belarus[3]. However, up to now, Belarus has received far less assistance than its neighbours. In fact, the Union’s policy towards Belarus differs considerably from the approach and language adopted in its relations with other ENP partner states (Bosse, 2009): while explicitly demanding the adoption of European values, the EU also highlights the need of preserving stability in the country. That explains why official institutions are the ones receiving the bulk of assistance, in the vague hope that democratization will orderly come from within the system.
It can be argued, consequently, that pushing for a regime change from the top, with strong conditionality and efforts at force-feeding European norms and values, has been the main tactical mistake of the EU. Arguably, dissociating Belarus from Russia would be an indispensable precondition for regime change, and this would only be possible as long as Western conditionality is softer than Russian[4].
Policy recommendations: a renewed dual track approach
As stated above, the EU’s approach towards Belarus is clearly divided between idealist values of democracy promotion, which translate into the (largely rhetoric) support of bottom-up civil society, and the realist goal to support state stability through strategic institution-building assistance (Bosse, 2009). Still, the EU should aim fundamentally to change Belarus, rather than merely to remove its leader (Jarábik, 2011).
Although biased, the twin-track approach claimed by the EU is still valid. Conditionality, limiting top-level contacts and ‘smart’ sanctions should stay in place, while direct assistance and dialogue with the civil society are and will remain a necessity. However, the current policy should be streamlined to minimize the perceived internal contradiction, as well as rationalized as far as its immediate and mid-term goals are concerned. Linkages between both parties’ interests should be found and promoted, thus generating a climate of trust, widespread backing for the EU and progressive social and economic aperture.
Shared interests (i.e. pragmatism) and not shared values (i.e. strict conditionality) should be the backbone of the EU’s approach towards Belarus. The main deficiency of the current EU neighbourhood strategy lies in its focus on top-down democracy promotion and the lack of preparedness for bottom-up, unpredicted democratic waves, as the (lack of an adequate) answer to the spreading Southern Mediterranean revolutions has recently shown[5]. The EU, despite the sincerity in the idealistic promotion of values of democracy, human rights and rule of law, is still biased towards the exertion of normative influence, order preservation and mostly reactive approaches[6], which won’t work in an autocratic country that is being tightly supervised by and is heavily depending on Russia.
Indeed, the lack of legal, political and institutional links between the EU and Belarus that limits interaction to issues of mutual interest (such as energy security or border control) rather than shared values should not be seen as an insurmountable obstacle per se: in fact, growing cooperation in mutual interests can foster the recognition and acceptance of shared values in a wider spectrum of both the civil society and the ruling elites.
Although clear warning signals should still be given, claims that Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown warrants a more forceful response from the West (Jarábik, 2011) should be dismissed. The EU should avoid overarching measures, such as excluding Belarus from the Eastern Partnership or embargoing the products of Belarusian state companies[7], which would punish not only the regime but also those in the government and society who want Belarus to move closer to the EU and push it irremediably eastwards towards Russia.
Therefore, while the EU did the right thing in freezing political contacts with Belarus at the highest level, and even though the recent terrorist attack in Minsk will certainly be used by the leadership to justify political restrictions and heightened political control, Brussels should remain committed to dialogue with those in the government not taking part in the repression and are interested in greater cooperation with the EU. Highly targeted, flexible sanctions – in the form of asset freezes and effective visa/travel bans[8] –, coupled with condemning communications and declarations stating the firmness of the EU's position, should be used to convey the Union’s discontent with the current situation.
Many of those who participated in the December 19 demonstration were young professionals and members of the emerging middle class. The EU-Belarus bilateral trade has been growing steadily in the last few years, and nowadays the EU is Belarus' second main trade partner, with almost 1/3 share in its overall trade (after Russia, with almost 1/2). Brussels should interpret these signs in a positive fashion, enhancing its engagement with the disgruntled and progressive middle classes[9].
Further efforts should be made to reach out to the whole of the Belarusian population adopting measures that are also positively seen by the nomenklatura. Such measures should obviously include negotiating a Schengen visa facilitation agreement with Belarus[10]. Academic exchange and scholarship programs, already initiated in 2006 and boosted in 2008, should also be expanded[11]. Both measures would have the clear goal of expanding the circle of Belarusians with a personal or business interest in enjoying closer ties with the EU. To allow the swift introduction of such a simplified visa regime, the EU should also keep alive its dialogue with lower-level Belarusian officials on matters such as border security (Kobzova and Wilson, 2011).
Contrary to some scholar’s suggestions, increased monetary assistance should be ruled out in a context of deep internal financial crisis in several EU member states[12]: instead, alternative methods of bottom-up democracy promotion should be prioritized. Moreover, funding projects procedures should be streamlined[13]: micro projects in the fields of human rights and democracy promotion, coordinated and managed via the Office for a Democratic Belarus to bolster efficiency and local ownership – as well as avoiding possible bureaucratization-related bottlenecks –, should be prioritized. However, further channeling of funds to NGOs and media outlets should not be straightforward: libel laws are extensively used to limit the spread of information critical of the regime, strict censorship is applied, foreign funding of NGOs is forbidden and all NGOs have to be registered (i.e. supervised) by the government,. Therefore, effectiveness of aid in these sectors is severely compromised.
The upcoming privatization process of state assets should also be seen as an opportunity for the EU – as well as, obviously, for European businesses. Brussels could offer its technical assistance to the Lukashenko government, based upon the expertise accumulated during the widely successful major privatization efforts that took place in countries such as Spain of France during the 1980s and 1990s. Although it is undeniably a heavily sensitive political use, the EU’s position to offer comprehensive, valuable assistance in that matter would be much better than Russia’s, which could easily be seen as both a threatening, self-interested partner and an unreliable role model on the conduction of such market-oriented reforms. In other words, Lukashenko would have a hard time denying such form of purely technical assistance, which would in turn help the EU raise its profile as an efficient, dependant partner among business elites and liberal-minded Belarusian entrepreneurs[14], as well as create opportunities for European investment in the country, currently at less than €1 billion.
Technical or expert cooperation in areas of mutual interest to the EU and Belarus has been a relatively consistent feature of cross-border/regional cooperation: further efforts should be made in this direction. Projects supporting the preservation of the environment and sustainable development in Belarus, already with some ongoing cooperation, would be an excellent way to foster cooperation and knowledge transfer. Similarly, projects focusing on energy efficiency and renewable sources – also with relevant examples underway – should also be fostered as a way to introduce Western advanced technology, to limit Moscow’s leverage on the energy-dependent Belarus and, even as importantly, to generate business opportunities and quality jobs inside the European Union[15].
The EU now has an opportunity to regain the initiative in its relationship with Belarus. If Minsk wants to preserve economic independence from Russia, it cannot rely solely on Moscow’s help. In short, Belarus needs to rebalance its economy and, by extension, its foreign relations. Obviously enough, Russia won’t renounce to exerting major influence on Belarus, both for economic/political and strategic/military reasons[16]. Any raise in European influence over the Belarusian government and population will be regarded with suspicion from Moscow: Belarus will continue to hold a prominent place in Russian foreign policy, but it is devoid of the kind of significance of relations with the EU, accounting for 50% of Russian foreign trade. This is the fundamental paradox underlying Russia-Belarus relations, and the EU should be able to take profit thereof.
Still, the EU should also be ready to step up its dialogue with the Russian authorities, also based on the multiple interests both powers share: non-visa travel from and to Russia for both EU and Russian citizens, enhanced hard security and antiterrorism cooperation, acceleration of the negotiations leading to a new, upgraded version of the current TCA, among others, could be discussed to avoid Russian backlash. In fact, the worst nightmare of the Belarusian regime is a serious confrontation both with Russia and the West at the same time[17]. In this context, one clear sign that Belarusian authorities are once again putting their hope in the West is the recent release of a number political prisoners from KGB detention centers right before the January 2011 EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting.
The EU should acknowledge that its pragmatic engagement with the Belarusian regime is also a key part of its idealistic, democracy-promoting foreign policy. Already since Soviet times, it has been quite clear that Belarusian society supports order and stability (Jarábik, 2011). Therefore, only when the EU comes to terms with this reality will it be able to formulate a more coherent, effective and mutually beneficial policy towards its eastern neighbours.
Finding the most adequate post-election policy towards Belarus is especially important, as it will also send a clear signal to the other five Eastern Partnership states and Russia. Having both tried isolation and engagement, many analysts and policymakers assumption that Europe cannot succeed in Belarus. However, ignoring it and simply writing it off as a failure, is simply a bad and dangerous policy (Zaiko, 2003): it is definitely not too late for the EU to help Belarus out of its current quagmire and help convert it into a prosperous, stable and democratic neighbour.
References
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Bosse, G. and Korosteleva-Polglase, E. (2009). Changing Belarus? The Limits of EU Governance in Eastern Europe and the Promise of Partnership. Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 44 no. 2, pp.143-165.
Jarábik, B., 2011. Belarus beyond sanctions, FRIDE, [online] Available at: <http://www.fride.org/publication/897/belarus-beyond-sanctions http://www.fride.org/publication/897/belarus-beyond-sanctions> [Accessed 20 April 2011]
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[3] Assistance concentrates mainly on the areas of food safety, energy, environment and higher education, but also on civil society and the social domain. The Commission also provides support to the country’s independent media.
[4] Even if it is still an unrealistic proposal, given Belarus’ energetic and economic dependence from Russia.
[5] Some scholars argue that the revolutions in the Southern neighbourhood, coupled with the failures of reforms in most of the Eastern neighbourhood illustrate the need for a new approach towards the ENP, which the EU seems ready to take – a full review of the ENP should be published on May 2011.
[6] In fact, the EU’s democracy and human rights promotion policies can be labeled as gradualist, as they are deployed with the aim to generate gradual or controlled change (i.e. top-down) in third states and implied support for ‘top-heavy political structures to manage reform processes’ and institution-building programmes, often at the expense of developing bottom-up civil society initiatives (Youngs, 2004).
[7] Such measures were discussed by EU foreign ministries in a recent Council meeting, but finally were not adopted.
[8] According to Jarábik (2011), the current EU visa ban list includes dozens who are no longer government officials, some officials who are not responsible for the judicial prosecution of opposition politicians and even one dead person, therefore displaying an alarming lack of knowledge of the Belarusian state of affairs.[9] In October 2009, a poll conducted by the independent NISEPI institute in Belarus found that 44.1 percent of Belarusians would vote ‘Yes’ in a referendum to join the EU.
[10] The average cost for a Belarusian citizen to obtain a visa to travel to the EU run up to ¼ of the average monthly salary. This explains why less than 5% of the population applies.
[11] Under the current programs, scholarships are granted to students who have been penalised by the Belarus regime and who have been denied access to local universities because of their political activities. We would propose expanding the program also to "neutral" students, while also creating new Erasmus Mundus exchange opportunities for both students and academic staff.
[12] In fact, increased assistance is one of the key elements of the policy paper recently published by the ECFR (Jarábik, Kobzova and Wilson, 2011).
[13] The very strict auditing rules and regulations of some EU instruments are also to blame for the difficulties in allocating funding to unregistered NGOs (Bosse, 2009).
[14] According to some estimates, 185,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses have been unable to operate normally since the beginning of 2008 due to severe hiring restrictions imposed by the central government.
[15] Spanish companies are world-leading producers of wind turbines, while German companies are well known for their solar panel technology, among others.
[16] The Russian army considers the Belarusian territory as highly strategic, not only because of its location as “first line of defense” against the NATO but also because it is an unavoidable transit way to the Russian territory around Kaliningrad (De la Cámara, 2010).
[17] In fact, on April 15, Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin affirmed that Russia is willing to help Belarus only if the Belarusian government continues introducing (liberal) reforms.
