On March 2-4 Vilnius hosted an expert conference “The EU global strategy: eastern partners in Europe and security”. Below are the main theses of the presentation by Belarus Security Blog representative:
The main threats for Belarus are inner ones, which are connected with the lack of reforms in economy and public administration as well as with technological lag, which develops into backwardness. External threats are more speculative now.
The updated policy of the Eastern Partnership (hereinafter referred to as the EP) should be based mainly on bilateral relations. In addition to strategic and value guidelines the EP must have a plan to achieve specific, measurable results for each partner country. The plan must be financially supported. In this case we are not talking about the allocation of grants, but about the transfer of knowledge, services, information, tools, that will help to strengthen the security and independence of partner countries.
It seems that the following areas of cooperation with the EU in the framework of the EP may be interesting for Belarus:
-training of personnel of law enforcement agencies, including language studies;
-creation of a common information space of the EU and the EP within the framework of intelligence services in the areas that are important for both the EU and the EP member states;
-rendering assistance in increasing the efficiency of public administration, law enforcement, social and economic areas for 17 districts of Belarus, bordering Russia.
The abolition of the EU weapons embargo against Belarus, which is symbolic, is also quite logical. As such symbols are important in international relations.
The only partner for the promotion of European values in Belarus has been a civil society. Personalistic regime is only interested in such formats of cooperation within the EP that do not compromise the system of one-man rule.
The behaviour of the EU in crisis situations in the past 8 years almost discredited value discourse of European politics, which is more and more perceived as hypocrisy. For example, after the Russian aggression in 2008, Georgia faced the unofficial EU weapons embargo on major weapons systems. The same thing happened with Ukraine in 2014 even in a more rigid form: not only weapons, but also the products that could theoretically be used to protect the country weren’t supplied. The values should be protected by action, and not just promoted in verbal form. Europe doesn’t demonstrate the readiness to defend the European values, it also prevents the post-Soviet countries with pro-European choice from being able to protect themselves and the European values at the same time.
Budapest Memorandum should be highlighted here. The reaction of Washington and London to the Ukrainian appeal for support undermines the credibility of the West not only in Kiev but also in Minsk and Astana.
Lack of trust doesn’t allow to expect a productive political dialogue of the official Minsk and the EU. Obviously, in political terms, the Belarusian authorities will focus on the major Asian countries.
The EU is interested in the formation of a kind of cordon sanitaire / buffer zone of Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova between itself and Russia. This position is understandable and rational. But the countries in the region also have their rational interests and needs. Therefore, the EP needs a concrete plan of cooperation with measurable and achievable results in order to be successful.
