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Results of the two-year involvement policy

From November 1996 to October 2008, the West adopted a policy of isolation against Belarus. Political contacts were limited, although trade and economic cooperation continued to develop. These relations seemed convenient for the EU, which was mostly focused on issues related to intra-EU integration. Belarus was not considered a problem for EU internal policy. Over a long period, such relations were also approved by Lukashenko. Between 1996 and 1999 he aspired to become President of the Union State of Belarus and Russia. In that period, he expelled ambassadors to Western states, and visited Slobodan Milosević in Belgrade. He wanted to be popular in Russia.
At the end of March 2006, Putin announced Russia’s intention to switch to market prices for the gas and oil delivered to Belarus. In order not to be swallowed up by Russia, Lukashenko needed Western technologies. Modernization of industry and increasing the efficiency of energy consumption became matters of survival for Lukashenko’s regime. In early 2008 analysts in the Presidential Administration developed an agenda aimed at the gradual improvement of relations with the West.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia stirred up the interest of Western policy in the Eastern European region. Lukashenko’s regime took advantage of the circumstances to start a dialogue with the West. In August 2008, political prisoners, including Aleksandr Kozulin, the former candidate for president, were released.
On 13 October 2008, the Council of the European Union called for a moratorium on a visa ban on Lukashenko and several senior officials. The EU started to implement the involvement policy, which was intended to encourage Lukashenko’s regime to cooperate.
Minsk took several steps to demonstrate its willingness to develop cooperation with the West. In early November 2008,  Vladimir Makey, the head of the Presidential Administration, gave a public speech at a Minsk forum, in which he elaborated on the desire of the independent state of Belarus to develop the trade and economic cooperation with the West. Makey’s declarations on actions heading for political liberalization became a sensation. Moreover, the words corresponded closely to the relations with the West. The government mentioned the political liberalization as an unimportant, minor condition for developing relations with the West; yet the crucial thing was that this condition had been approved. Makey’s promise given at the forum was fulfilled. Independent newspapers such as Nasha Niva and Narodnaya Vola were incorporated into the governmental distribution system. In December 2008, For Freedom, a democratic political movement, was registered. A social and advisory council chaired by Makey began operations. The council was a kind of a platform for debate between the authorities and representatives of social organisations and political movements.
Considering Belarusian reality, these steps did not really count as substantial political changes. Actually, following a ‘thaw’ in political relations with the West, the government was examining and wanted to determine which topics and terms of cooperation the West considered a top priority, which were minor, and which were not essential at all.
The ‘thaw’ in political contacts occurred after Russia’s invasion of Georgia which resulted in the appearance of certain so-called ‘geopolitical’ frames of relationships. Subsequently, Lukashenko repeated that if the invasion had not happened, there would not have been any Eastern Partnership and the West wouldnot have paid any attention to Belarus.
In the first months following the moratorium on the visa ban, Lukashenko’s regime came out on top in negotiations and contacts with the EU. There was a great deal of public information about how the EU’s foreign policy decisions were taken and why the EU eventually turned towards its Eastern neighbors. On the other hand, for the EU, the decision-making process in Belarusian policy remained a 'huge question mark'.

As early as the autumn of 2008, Minsk could get a fairly accurate idea about the priorities of the EU,and therefore decide on its subsequent actions. The EU made a number of major mistakes in their relations with Lukashenko’s regime:

1. Unlike the other member states of the Eastern Partnership, the main condition for the participation of Belarus in the Eastern Partnership (and, in general, the prerequisite of the dialogue with the West) was its non-approval of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In fact, this was the West’s only demand. In addition, it was stated what bans would be introduced, unless Lukashenko’s regime, as usual for an ally of Russia,recognized the independence of the separatist regions in Georgia. However, the topics related to political liberalization were treated by the West more like a request or a suggestion. Кarel Schwarzenberg, the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic (at that time the chairman of the EU) expressed a similar viewpoint while talking to the Belarusian officials.

2. The West was not only speaking about the policy which was supposed to involve Lukashenko’s regime in cooperation, as a response to the expansion of Russia (like the other members of the Eastern Partnership), but also it presented such a geopolitical approach.

In February 2008, when Belarus became a state where the detention of political prisoners resumed and repressions continued, the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Javier Solana, said during his visit to Minsk that the EU had not made any demands on Belarus. Solana noted with satisfaction that Belarus was interested in developing trade and economic cooperation with the EU. Lukashenko enthusiastically praised the ‘wise’ Solana.
The detention of Nikolai Avtukhovich, who had been previously recognized by 'Amnesty International' as a political prisoner, as well as the beatings and arrests of opposition activists, and the house searches – all of this contributed to the wave of repressions occurring in February 2009. This constituted a kind of test, a tug-of-warfor Lukashenko’s regime. Following a number of very short steps along the path of political liberalization, the government made numerous giant leaps in the opposite direction. The EUcondemned them. Nevertheless, neither sanctions nor other specific steps were taken. Thus, the ЕU showed once again what was important and what was insignificant to it. On 7 May 2009, at the Prague summit, Belarus became a member of the Eastern Partnership.

As time went by, its contacts with the EU convinced the Belarusian government that the EU was also distinguished by other features.

3. The EU is a clumsy, bureaucratic machine.

Experts from Belarusian state think-tanks started to notice that due to its sluggishness and inertia, it would take the EU a very long time to launch its involvement policy, as was the case while it had been applying the policy of isolation beforehand.

4. The EU is a union of 27 states. They have not only common interests, but also private ones – and that difference can be used in accordance with the principle of divide et impera (divide and conquer).

Italy, Spain and Portugal supported the abolition of the visa ban. Lithuania and Latvia were interested in the transit of Belarusian goods. Germany has its own economic interests and, in addition, it considers Russia’s position. In their speech at the Minsk Forum, representatives of German corporations said that business goes where the profit is, and that good business can be done, for example, in non-democratic China. At the end of November 2009, in Minsk, Lukashenko met Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, accompanied by a group of Italian bankers and manufacturers; Berlusconi declared that the Belarusians loved their president, as had been proved in the results of the election.
Minsk then identified one more area of the EU’s vulnerability. It became convinced that, with the support of Azerbaijan, it could effectively act against the export of democracy from the West. After the election in Ukraine held in February 2010, Lukashenko probably won over one more ally in the Eastern Partnership. Many facts prove that Yanukovych is following in Lukashenko’s footsteps.

In the first half of 2010, the government carried out another survey on the ЕU’s intentions towards Belarus. In February, the repressions came down upon The Union of Poles in Belarus. In April, the results of the local elections were rigged with all the apparatus of state power.
Repressions occurring on the day of the presidential election and afterwards contrasted with the few months of political liberalization in the pre-election period (the power base did not prevent signatures from being collected, and it provided more opportunities for election campaigning). However, repressionhas regularly recurred over the entire period since the last election.

In the environment of this particular liberalization, the level of fear among the general public has gone down. Lukashenko intended to hold the election so as to make the West remark on the progress in Belarus’s election procedures. But as the crowd of protesters appeared at the door of the Government House, this scenario fell to pieces. The government used force and applied repressive measures on an unprecedented scale, in order to restore the atmosphere of fear. The goal was to strike the opposition so severely that it could not recover for a long time.
At the same time, the new wave of repressions was the response of Lukashenko’s regime to the involvement policy, dictated by the geopolitical interests of the West. And this response was not emotional, but cold-hearted and carefully thought out.

The methods of pressure applied by Lukashenko’s regime to the West, and the EU’s responses

Belarusian state officials often declare that Belarus is a bridge linking East and West. Belarus is a barrier to the flow of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs trafficking. Lukashenko threatens that if Belarus performs transit and other functions poorly, it will cost the West dearly.
Currently, once the West reacted to the rigging of the presidential election and the repression, Lukashenko’s regime started to apply other instruments of pressure.

1. Minsk maintains the appearance of enhanced cooperation with Russia and movement towards it.

After the election, Lukashenko has repeatedly stated that he will respond firmly to any pressure from the EU. He will not introducing new visa bans as he considers it inconvenient; nor can he retaliate by imposing an economic embargo.
Lukashenko is blackmailing the West with a new turn towards Russia. After the election, the government stopped its anti-Russian information campaign. It accused Poland and Germany of plotting a coupd’état in Belarus. Talks on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus with the participation of Russia were resumed. Belarusian officials resumed talking about the establishment of a union state, the huge benefits of the customs union, and Belarus’ role as an ally of Russia. Perhaps, the government will reconsider the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It may consider withdrawing from the Eastern Partnership program. Probably, it will carry out military trainings near the borders with its neighbors which are NATO states.
However, Lukashenko is bluffing. This cover hides fundamental contradictions on all major issues of Belarusian–Russian relations, including the deliveries of oil and gas and conditions for Belarusian exports to Russia. Over the past two years, the involvement policy applied by the EU has resulted in irreversible changes in Belarusian–Russian relations. The broadcast of very critical of Lukashenko documentary films (in which he was accused of political assassinations) on Russian TV was considered by Lukashenko as a declaration of war on him, his family and his inner circle. Lukashenko and other power holders in Belarus are aware, that if they take steps towards real integration with Russia (such as selling off enterprises to Russian companies, monetary union, the expansion of military cooperation), then they will become nobody; they will be submerged and destroyed.

2. Lukashenko has made it clear that if the West does not move forward, then Belarusian political prisoners will spend long years behind bars.

In August 2008, Lukashenko stated that the release of the former  candidate for president Аleksandr Коzulin was an “unprecedented step of goodwill”. The Western states learned through diplomatic channels that Minsk wanted something in return. Now, 42 participants of the protests on 19 December 2010 face custodial sentences of up to 15 years’ imprisonment. Lukashenko will attempt to sell these goods to the West at the maximum price.
Pursuant to the decision of the EU’s Council of Foreign Ministers of 13 January 2011, visa bans were reintroduced. Nevertheless, this does not currently mean a return to the policy of isolating Lukashenko’s regime. Belarus is a member of the Eastern Partnership initiative. The EU is continuing its involvement policy, albeit at a slightly slower pace. At the same time, it is becoming involved in the trading of political prisoners, according to the new scenario of Lukashenko’s regime.

Considering the changes in Belarusian–Russian relations (Lukashenko will under no circumstances make any further concessions to Russia), the West, and the EU in particular, have to take decisive steps. Loans granted to Lukashenko’s regime (including those from the IMF and the World Bank) have to be stopped. The import of petroleum products manufactured in Belarus must be discontinued as well. Such actions will force the government to release political prisoners and take some steps towards political liberalization.