Belarus: violence must stop and regime must change

Europe wants mutually beneficial relations with Eastern neighbours

• After the Cold War, which divided Europeans for more than forty years, and the period of instability following the break-up of the former USSR, the development of mutually beneficial relations with our Eastern neighbours has been a major objective of the European foreign policy.
• For eleven years now, the Union has been engaged in an ambitious Eastern Partnership with six countries of the region, including Belarus.
• However, relations between the European Union and this landlocked country can only develop fully when fundamental human rights and the basic rules of democracy are respected.

“Direct neighbour of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, Belarus is a key element of our Eastern Partnership”

Alexander Lukashenko came to power in Belarus in 1994 when the country became independent for the first time in history. In the following years, fundamental freedoms and democratic principles were openly ignored and violated. This led the EU to take restrictive measures against the regime after the 2010 elections.

A more positive path since 2015

• The subsequent release of political prisoners in August 2015 then enabled the Union to lift most of the restrictive measures in place.
• Since, we witnessed a more positive path in our relations and Belarus became a more active participant of the Eastern Partnership.
• Between 2014 and 2020, more than 170 million euros have been allocated to Belarus via the European Neighbourhood Instrument.
• Various exchange programmes for young people, researchers and professionals have been set up to increase people-to-people contacts.

Potential candidates were prevented to participate

• Potential candidates were imprisoned or prevented to participate due to politically motivated restrictive measures.
• Repression had intensified against political opponents and independent media, bloggers and activists.
• The hardening of the regime had been aggravated in recent weeks by the outbreak of COVID-19 and its far-reaching economic and social consequences.
• The pandemic hit the country particularly hard also because the Belarusian authorities did not take it seriously at the outset.

“The deterioration in the political climate culminated in neither free nor fair elections and an outburst of repressive violence”

• The deterioration in the political climate culminated in elections that were neither free nor fair.
• An outburst of repressive violence followed, when the people of Belarus courageously demonstrated their mistrust of the announced result and their desire for change.
• Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the most successful opposition candidate, who replaced her still imprisoned husband, was forced to take refuge in Lithuania.

Reconsidering relations with Belarus

• Otherwise, we will have to reconsider our relations with Belarus and eventually take sanctions against those responsible for the violence, arbitrary arrests and falsification of election results.
• We support of course the sovereignty and independence of Belarus, but we cannot develop our relations by ignoring blatant violations of human rights and political freedoms.

“The EU stands everywhere for democracy and human rights and we need to prevent the undermining of those values”

The EU is a value-based community: beyond the Belarus case, we stand everywhere for democracy and human rights. We need to prevent the undermining of those values; a trend we unfortunately observe in recent years in a growing number of countries.