Feeling the Heat: Belarus' Constrained Diplomacy

In recent weeks, the Republic of Belarus has been attempting to break out of its near isolation from the EU and end a period of tension that began after December 2010 presidential election.

Following the arrests of more than 700 protesters in Minsk’s Independence Square after the election, the EU revived its travel sanctions on leading Belarusian political and judicial figures, headed by President Alexander Lukashenko.

In response to the EU’s actions and its demand for the release of all political prisoners, including former presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich, Belarus moved measurably closer to Russia. Belarus is a full-fledged member of a customs union with a “common economic space” with Russia and Kazakhstan, and it has been granted a $3 billion loan from the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Community. But although Russia has been conciliatory, these funds come with conditions attached. In particular, Russia would like a controlling interest in a number of profitable Belarusian companies, having already acquired more than 50 percent of the gas-transit enterprise Beltranshaz, which delivers about 20 percent of Russian gas supplies to Europe.

Belarus’ options in foreign policy have become increasingly constrained by human rights issues on the one hand, and its need for foreign investment and external loans to keep afloat its struggling economy on the other. How Belarus chooses to navigate these trade-offs will determine whether a rapprochement with the EU is possible or whether it will instead move irrevocably into the sphere of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), thereby losing some of the autonomous decision-making powers it has held since independence in 1991. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether efforts to develop ties with China and Latin America will allow Belarus to diversify its relations beyond its chief trading partners Russia and the European Union. 

Lukashenko and Russia

The president of Belarus has never made any secret of the fact that he does not regard Russians as foreigners or in any way different from Belarusians. Since 1995, Russian has been an official state language of Belarus -- Belarusian having been the only state language for the previous five years -- and Russian is the language spoken most frequently in public and in business circles. Since 1996, Lukashenko has been the main initiator of a closer partnership with Moscow that has taken on different forms, but is best known as the Russia-Belarus Union (RBU). Indeed, foreigners landing at the main Minsk-2 International Airport receive a customs form informing them that they have landed in the Union State.

Belarus is also a member of a number of other organizations. These include the CIS, formed in December 1991 by socialist republics then exiting the Soviet Union; the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), formed in May 1992, which serves mainly military functions and includes Russia, Armenia and several Central Asian states; the Eurasian Economic Community (1996), which developed from the CIS customs union among Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan; and the larger Customs Union (2010), formed under Russian leadership as a response to the EU, with an announced goal of establishing a Eurasian Union by 2015. Belarus is also a “dialogue partner” in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded in 1996, which is concerned with the mutual security interests of Russia, China and Central Asia.

Though his initial presidential campaign of 1994 was founded on retaining and strengthening former Soviet ties with Russia, Lukashenko’s second decade of rule has seen him less willing to allow policies that would further integrate Belarus with Russia to develop freely. There are several reasons for this shift. First of all, the “union” has never been an equal one. It places Belarus’ small, heavily nationalized economy alongside the Russian economy, which is very large and privatized and moreover headed by voracious oligarchs supported by the Russian government. It seems on paper a small step from cooperating with Russia to becoming a mere ornament in the Russian trophy case.

That prospect would perhaps not be so daunting if relations between the Belarusian and Russian leaders were straightforward. In some ways Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko are similar. They are both authoritarian. They both use coarse language. They both revere the Soviet past. And they both have some links with the KGB -- in Putin’s case as an operative, in Lukashenko’s as a border guard. But the two leaders have never trusted each other, and at times a strain of overt hostility between them is evident. Lukashenko would have been content with the prospect of a powerful RBU in which the president of Belarus had a key part to play. However, Putin perceives Belarus as a very junior partner and one that should behave accordingly.

The two sides have wrangled over a number of issues, most notably about Moscow’s ending of Russian subsidies on gas and oil prices in 2006 and Belarus’ ability to pay for resources at market prices. But they have also argued over such issues as Belarusian dairy product exports to Russia -- the Russians maintained in the summer of 2009 that certain Belarusian products did not meet their health standards -- and Lukashenko’s foot-dragging over Belarus’ participation as an active partner in various Russian-led organizations.

The second key factor in the Russia-Belarus relationship, aside from the personal relationship between their leaders, is the broader development trajectory of Belarus, which has found its feet as an independent state. Belarusian living standards since independence have been better than those in many neighboring states, and opinion polls indicate that the country’s residents have come to terms with life after the Soviet Union. Still, the authorities have mounted a major propaganda campaign to glorify the country’s recent past, particularly in the “Great Patriotic War,” as World War II is known, and billboards and posters emphasize the pleasures of living in the republic and the wise leadership of its president in keeping at bay the predators from East and West. Officially there is a “social contract” between president and people that has ensured relatively high wages at state companies and reliable provision of pensions. Since 2009, however, this contract has been under pressure from the global recession, the enforced devaluations of state currency and rampant inflation, which have left Belarusians spending most of their income on food. Nevertheless, they do not wish to see their most valuable companies sold to Russia, or even to the highest bidder. 

Still, Russia’s economic role in Belarus is significant. Russia accounts for more than 50 percent of Belarusian imports and about 35 percent of exports. In particular, Belarus remains dependent on Russian energy resources, and Russia is building and financing a nuclear power station at Astravets, on the border with Lithuania, that is expected to be online by 2017. Belarus has accrued heavy debts to Russia, and the Russians have long expressed their interest in settling those debts through the acquisition of Belarusian companies, most notably Belaruskali (Belarus Potash), the MAZ trucking company and the Belarusian cell phone company, in addition to the already acquired Beltranshaz. Though much reduced, Russian subsidies still make up about 15 percent of Belarus’ GDP. 

The third factor impacting the relationship is the fact Lukashenko’s overriding goal as president is to remain in office and consolidate his power. He has no serious ambitions for Belarus as a state or an emerging nation. State symbols and commemorations are largely reminiscent of the Soviet era, partly because of a somewhat naive belief that people find them reassuring. Nevertheless, though the state is ostensibly “open for business,” the government is reluctant to sell shares of state-owned enterprises, and investment into the nonbanking sector of the economy has declined 24 percent since 2011, even according to official figures. The reason is that Belarus wishes to set the terms for foreign investment, which if left unchecked is seen as a factor that may weaken the power of the president. 

Unlike in the Ukraine or Russia, there is no alternative source of authority in Belarus. Every initiative, every major policy statement, emanates from the office of the president. The ruling circle around Lukashenko consists of figures who have served, departed and returned again, most notably Viktor Sheiman, the head of the Department of Presidential Affairs; those who have served, offended and departed never to return -- quite a lengthy list; and family members. This third group includes the president’s oldest son, Viktor, who controls the security forces; Lukashenko’s middle son, Dmitry, who runs the Presidential Sports Club; and his nine-year-old son Nikolai (“Kolya”), whom the president invariably brings with him on foreign trips and talks of as his successor, though the child’s mother is not Lukashenko’s wife. 

It is a bizarre environment in some ways, but one not atypical of dictatorships, a category that Belarus essentially falls into. Despite largely cosmetic official rhetoric about the threat from NATO, the Western alliance is unlikely to intervene to remove Lukashenko as long as Belarus remains part of the Russian military bloc. Rather, the main threat to Lukashenko’s longevity in office is Russia itself, which also happens to be one of Belarus’ key international partners. The other major alternative as an international partner for Lukashenko has been the European Union.

Lukashenko and the EU

Belarus has ties with several European institutions, including the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly. But its key links have been with the EU, which has long equated partnership with a moral responsibility to promote democracy and respect for human rights. Generally, Belarus is perceived to be sorely lacking in both respects. 

There have been several recent attempts at dialogue as well as technical assistance between Belarus and the EU, following a series of conciliatory gestures made by Lukashenko in 2008. These included releasing political prisoners and allowing some domestic freedoms, especially for opposition newspapers. In response, in 2009 the EU accepted Belarus into its Eastern Partnership project and ended its travel ban on Belarusian leaders -- a ban first imposed in November 2002 by the EU countries and the United States as a result of Belarus’ lamentable human rights record and the expulsion of OSCE officials from Minsk. The ban was expanded in 2004 after clashes in the streets over a controversial referendum that extended Lukashenko’s time in office beyond the two terms permitted by the constitution. In April 2006, the Europeans placed a visa ban on the president and many of his officials after mass arrests following the presidential elections that year. The pattern is thus familiar.

Matters were complicated by the expansion of the EU in 2004 to include Belarus’ neighbors Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Not only did these countries have direct trading interests in Belarus, but their entry into the EU’s Schengen area of visa-free travel meant that Belarusian travelers would need to pay a fee of almost $80, or about 20-25 percent of their average monthly income, to cross the border. Belarusians suddenly found themselves excluded from their own European neighborhood.

In 2009-2010, the relationship between the EU and Belarus improved slightly, at least at the elite level. Although the funds offered for collaboration by the Eastern Partnership were small, European officials offered much larger incentives of up to nearly $4 billion if the December 2010 election were free and fair. The 2010 election campaign was certainly freer than earlier ones, but after the vote was counted, the results were the same: a victory for Lukashenko beyond anything predicted by opinion polls and mass violence in the center of Minsk. The EU responded by renewing and expanding the visa ban, with the foreign ministers of four major countries -- Germany, Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic -- declaring that there was no longer any point in dealing with Lukashenko.

Recently, however, there have been new signs of change in Minsk. The Belarusians’ main goal has been to try to circumvent sanctions by appealing to individual European leaders, focusing on states that have important business connections with Belarus, and signing agreements between Belarusian pro-presidential organizations and political parties in Latvia and Poland specifically. Belarusian embassies abroad have also been tasked with making contact with prominent businesses. At the same time, Belarus has tried to reach beyond Europe to demonstrate that there are rivals for its affection.

In August 2012, Lukashenko appointed as his new foreign minister the head of his presidential administration, Uladzimir Makei, a man known before December 2010 for developing good relations with the West, most visibly as a participant in the German-operated Minsk Forum that held annual symposia in the Belarusian capital. Makei is also believed to be a trusted mentor of Viktor Lukashenko. Though the new foreign minister remains on the EU’s visa ban list, there is little doubt that his assigned role is to reopen the door to Europe.

Notably, even under the travel ban regime, the EU has remained the second-most-important partner of Belarus after Russia. Almost 40 percent of Belarusian exports go to the EU, and 20 percent of Belarusian imports are from the union. Belarus’ main business partners within the EU are the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Latvia and the United Kingdom. The EU and Belarus have also actively cooperated in securing borders against the trafficking of drugs, as well as on smaller-scale projects. The past two years, however, have been most notable for Belarusian initiatives to circumvent the travel ban and to reignite the relationship with Brussels.

Belarus continues to avoid dealing with the EU hierarchy, focusing instead on business and political connections. In parallel, though, the Belarusians are likely to make some concessions, perhaps temporary, to ingratiate themselves once again with Europe. They have already released, albeit only after an official pardon was requested, former presidential candidate and leader of the European Belarus movement Andrei Sannikau, who subsequently emigrated to the United Kingdom. There has also been speculation that Belarus will change the rules for presidential elections to allow public organizations to nominate candidates, as well as for the formation of electoral commissions, open counting of votes and cancellation of the widespread practice of early voting.

The authorities in Minsk are also using the informal pro-presidential organization Belaya Rus, which is not at present an official political party, to approach political parties in the EU, and in early March it signed agreements with the Polish Self-Defense Party (“Samooborona”) and the Latvian social-democratic party Harmony. The goal is to find partners within the EU through which to lobby for the interests of the Belarusian leadership. Although Samooborona currently has little influence on Polish political life, Harmony controls almost one-third of seats in the Latvian parliament. A subsidiary goal of these newly forged links is to curtail any discussions between the EU and representatives of the Belarusian opposition.

Belarus also signaled its intention to restart its relationship with the EU in meetings with U.S. officials, including one with leaders of the private Jamestown Foundation in Washington in January, and with officials from the U.S. State Department shortly afterward. Lukashenko will still nonetheless need to convince the Europeans that after almost 19 years, there is a possibility that he could genuinely reform his regime. In general the Europeans remain skeptical, but the EU is hardly monolithic, and there are influential figures among its 27 member states that would prefer to see links with the union’s eastern neighbor reopened.

China and Latin America

Belarus’ other foreign partners are currently peripheral to its foreign policy, but Minsk is developing interests with both China and Latin America. In the case of the former, the main result has been a project to construct a Chinese-Belarusian industrial park, reportedly to be built by some 650,000 Chinese migrant workers who, it was announced in December 2012, would be housed in the small town of Smaliavichy, about 30 miles from Minsk. An influx of this size would represent about one-sixth of the Belarus’ industrial workforce. The industrial park will occupy an area of more than 30 square miles on the highway from Moscow to Brest, at a starting cost of an estimated $30 billion, to be financed by Chinese investment from the CAMC Engineering Company. According to Belarusian news site Charter 97, a special economic zone that will remain in force for the next 50 years was established there by presidential decree. Its focus will be electronic and mechanical engineering, chemicals and biomedicine.

Belarus also has close ties with Venezuela, based largely on the personal friendship between Lukashenko and the late Hugo Chavez. The volume of trade between Belarus and Venezuela had grown from $2 million in 2000 to $1.3 billion by 2010, and Venezuela provided some oil exports to Belarus using the port of Odessa. Venezuelan oil was never considered a serious alternative to Russian oil, however. More important in that relationship has been Belarusian coordination of Venezuela’s air defense system, a project expected to yield $1 billion in profits, as well as Belarus’ provision to Venezuela of anti-aircraft systems in May 2012. A number of other plans were underway for the production of Belarusian tractors and trucks for the Latin American agricultural market, but it remains unclear now whether Chavez’s as-yet-undetermined successor will continue the project. Nonetheless, trade with Venezuela comprises only about 1.5 percent of Belarus’ total trade volume, and thus even an outright severance of trade ties between the two would not have a major impact on the Belarusian economy.

Conclusion

The general picture for Belarus is of a foreign policy that is geared both toward security, through links with Russia, and economic needs, where the prime partners are Russia and the EU on an almost equal basis. Ideally for the Lukashenko regime, both should be developed simultaneously to allow more freedom of maneuver. Over the past three years, that approach has proved difficult to implement, since the EU has been increasingly reluctant to engage with the Belarusians without significant improvements in the domestic climate of human rights, democracy and economic reforms. Foreign investment in Belarus has increased, but many investors are wary of long-term commitment and, according to some sources, are concerned about the longevity of the Lukashenko regime and what may replace it once his protracted presidency ends. The country has a dangerously high level of debt; its foreign reserves remain low; and its economic assets are targeted by Russia, which has never made any secret of its wish to integrate Belarus more fully into both its geostrategic and economic spheres of interest.

On the other hand, Lukashenko has remained in power partly as a result of populist appeal, partly because there is no obvious alternative and last but not least because of his considerable political skills and ability to keep some avenues open as others close and to offer some options even to those who are disillusioned with his duplicity and all too familiar with his tactics. The state is in some trouble, but its ailments do not appear to be terminal, and new options are always available: The current goal is to start a new dialogue with the EU or with those parts of the union willing to talk. And it may well succeed.

David R. Marples is distinguished university professor, Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta. He has authored 14 books, including three on Belarus, and more than 200 scholarly articles. He is also president of the North American Association of Belarusian Studies.

David Marples, Worlds Politics Review