Belarus – Europe’s ticking bomb

Date: 26/01/06

In just under two months Belarus will hold presidential elections. The result is a foregone conclusion. An iron grip on the air waves and the use of the KGB (as the secret police is still known) would, even without ballot stuffing, likely command enough votes for the incumbent Alexander Lukashenko to win a third term.

When Lukashenko brags "we will not have to retain power by force, as we enjoy the confidence of the people," he is at least partly right.

While a coloured revolution cannot be ruled out, it will take something as dramatic as the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989 to turn the March elections into an event that pulls Belarus away from its current dictatorial course.

The prospects are, however, bleak, as Dov Lynch of the EU's Institute of Security Studies put it in a recent publication: "What can the EU do with a neighbouring state that is impervious to its influence and could not care less about its concerns?"

The EU's decade-long effort to drag Belarus away from authoritarianism, through a mixture of inducements and pressure, has achieved little.

One notable exception is the recent success - in tandem with the US - in galvanising the despe-rately fractured opposition around one presidential candidate, Alexander Milinkevich.

Yet Belarussian opposition activists are more likely to look to Washington than Brussels for support, despite the EU's obvious interest and responsibility for a neighbouring country.

On the eve of the elections the EU still faces two simple questions: what does it want to achieve and how should it achieve this?

Today, not even the first question has been answered convincingly.

All member states agree that Belarus is a serious threat to Europe's stability. Through its policies, or lack thereof, Minsk has hindered the EU's own actions against arms control, organised crime and illegal immigration.

But with Russia's support, Belarus, at least for now, is not a failed state. The impact of its bad governance has therefore been felt primarily in neighbouring countries.

For EU member states that are further away, such as France or Spain, having good relations with Russia and pursuing their own economic interests in the region are of greater importance than establishing democracy in Belarus.

For some EU members, the current situation may be preferable; if Lukashenko were to be deposed, the EU would probably face demands for membership such as those presented by Ukraine after the Orange Revolution.

But it is perhaps Russia under President Vladimir Putin that has most quickly and fully grasped the dangers inherent in Lukashenko's continued rule over Belarus.

Putin, correctly, sees Belarus as a ticking bomb, the question being just how and when it explodes.

Putin's tactic to neutralise this threat is the Russia-Belarus union, long proposed but to date not implemented. This has the double benefit for Putin of bringing Lukashenko firmly into line and simultaneously expanding Russia's influence in Central Europe yet further.

By acting as guarantor for Lukashenko in the March elections, Putin is granting a favour that he is likely to call in soon after.

Some diplomats see a referendum on a state union coming as soon as this summer.

But the obvious aversion of Lukashenko and the Belarussian people to becoming a Russian oblast presents an opportunity for the EU to foster a new policy, a grand bargain for the Belarussian leadership.

Although the current political climate in the Union rules out a guarantee of EU accession, the member states could offer rapid access for Belarus to most of the benefits of EU membership - free movement of goods, services and people. For Lukashenko it would promise a step away from coercive diplomacy towards good relations. It would be a chance to start anew.

If the offer is not taken up, the consequences could be made clear to Belarus. The EU might devise a serious package of diplomatic and economic sanctions that would cut any independence and leverage that Minsk has in Moscow.

Crucially this also means convincing some EU member states that short-term self-interest is less valuable than real stability.

Major analysis feature previewing the Presidential elections in Belarus, scheduled for 19 March 2006.

European Commission: DG External Relations: Countries: Belarus http://www.eeas.europa.eu/belarus/index_en.htm

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