The EU’s awkward neighbour: time for a new policy on Belarus

On 19 March 2006 the people of Belarus – a small but strategically important country – voted in a presidential election. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed to have won 82.6 per cent of the vote, though neither the EU nor the US recognised the result. In the week after the election the government arrested a few hundred opposition activists, including one of the presidential candidates.

The EU’s current policy of ‘conditional engagement’ has failed to improve the situation in
Belarus. The EU has withheld favours and cut off contacts, but the regime has become steadily
more authoritarian.

The EU needs a new policy. It should offer big incentives to encourage the regime to reform, but
also make clear that any further repression would provoke a tough response. It should step up its
efforts to support civil society and overhaul its methods for aiding NGOs.

European leaders should tell Russia that the EU has a legitimate interest in how Belarus is
governed. But the EU should also stress that it does not see Belarus as a pawn in a geopolitical
game. Both the EU and Russia would benefit from a stable, prosperous and democratic Belarus.