Pavol Demes: I don't understand why Makei was removed from EU blacklist

The EU's stance on the Belarusian regime is not tough and principled enough.

This statement was made by Pavol Demes, a representative of the German Marshall Fund, at the conference “Eastern Partnership: Can Human Rights Values and Norms Compete with Geopolitics?” organised by Freedom House's Lithuanian office.

He noted that members of the Eastern Partnership project were in a difficult situation being between two realities. The situation is harder for them than it was for the Baltic States and the central European countries, because these countries didn't have the Russian factor when they were integrating with the EU,” the Lithuanian website ru.DELFI.lt writes.

“The Eastern Partnership is a group of countries that differs from the Baltic States and the Western Balkans. Six EaP countries are something completely different. […] It is absolutely right to speak how human rights complement geopolitics as it happens in the EaP. These countries are between two geopolitical realities [Russia and the EU]. Russia didn't play an important role in the process of integration of the Visegrad Group with the EU and NATO. In the Eastern Partnership, Russia speaks more than we, the EU and the US, speak together,” he says.

Pavol Demes touched on the topic of selective prosection and asked how to call injustice. The notion “selective prosecution” should be applied to Ukraine and Georgia but not to Belarus, according to him. Belarus is the only country that was expelled from the Council of Europe due to human rights violations.

“Belarus points at our (the EU's) weakness rather than our strong points,” Pavol Demes thinks.

He says that Europe continues to talk to the Belarusian regime after the brutal crackdown in 2010.

”I don't understand why travel restrictions were lifted from Mr Makei. He was the head of the president's administration. He is most likely to visit Vilnius next week,” he notes with astonishment.

Demos is convinced that the case of Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialiatski is the best example of failure to agree “when you begin to talk to autocrats”, when the EU wasn't tough and principled enough. He called on the EU leaders to find out when works and what doesn't work in the Eastern Partnership initiative.

“We should admit that it is not the Baltic Sates, the Visegrad Group or the Western Balkans. It is the European Partnership. If we call it so, we should admit what works and what doesn't work there,” he said to participants of the conference.

The human rights situation in Belarus doesn't improve, David Kramer, the head of Freedom House, said in a video address to participants of the conference “ Eastern Partnership: Can Human Rights Values and Norms Compete with Geopolitics?” organised by the Lithuanian office of Freedom House.

He notes the both strategic and economic issues were important for the Eastern Partnership, but he emphasised the importance of human rights, democratic principles and freedom. Six members of the initiative were different with an uneven picture, he said.

Belarus has been a source of great concern for a long time, according to him. “We haven't seen any improvements of the situation. There's a debate how Belarus should be represented at the Eastern Partnership Summit. […] No improvements indicate that Lukashenka's regime has deserved an invitation to the Eastern Partnership Summit,” he said.

The Freedom House head reminded that Ukraine and the issue of selective prosecution would be in focus of the summit. David Kramer emphased the progress of Moldova and Georgia and added he was sorry to see that “Armenia decided to reverse its path to the Eastern Partnership under Russian pressure.”

“But in all these countries the issue of values in human rights are critically important,” he summed up.