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The Baltic Dimension in the Foreign Policy of Belarus
The issue of building co-operation with Belarus has recently received an increased amount of attention among the countries of the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). This attention is, first of all, focused on the co-operation in the business and political spheres. The humanitarian cooperation between Belarus, the Baltic States and Scandinavia has always been developing in a productive and dynamic way.
The increased interest in Belarus is a result of a number of changes which have happened over the past few years both at the regional and global levels. The European Union has significantly enhanced its influence. It has become a new economic and political community consisting of 27 European states. The former Soviet Baltic republics- currently the independent states- have met their strategic challenges through joining the Euro-Atlantic structures. The statehood of Belarus has also been strengthened and developed up to the level of being an internationally recognized country. The late 1990s have gone and swept away the stereotypes about the artificial statehood of Belarus and its deep and radical dependence on Russia.
The renaissance of the regional cooperation
On the other hand, the co-operation inside the BSR has also undergone a qualitative change in recent years. The countries in the region have built their co-operative and project infrastructures, set out their priorities for regional co-operation, developed the financial mechanisms to support it and strengthened their regional political consolidation. The programmes, which are being implemented within the framework of the European Union, have become an important supplement to the regional co-operation. The Eastern Partnership launched in 2009 can be mentioned as the most recent and most promising project of the European Union in the region.
The regional co-operation is gradually assuming new proportions. Now the region is perceived in a broader sense. However for a long period of time Belarus was considered a leftover country as the co-operation projects were concerned, and a kind of a semi-periphery of the BSR. This attitude was based on the popular but wrong definition of Belarus as a country without clear conceptual approach to co-operation with other states and international institutions. It was true though only to some extent. When you look at the situation closer, it becomes obvious that during the last ten years Belarus has been building its foreign policy towards the BSR in a very fundamental way. Nowadays the policy principles are formulated both in terms of content and in terms of concept. In the Belarus diplomatic circles the policy is commonly referred to as “the Concept of Responsible Neighbourhood”. According to experts, the elaboration and implementation of the policy is driven by a variety of factors. They include:
• the need to provide sovereignty, territorial integrity and security for the country;
• the need to reconstruct and develop the co-operation in the areas of economy, science and technology, as well as to intensify the trade relations;
• the importance for the Belarus industry to expand into new markets and to create the joint factories;
• the scale of global environmental and humanitarian problems in the region, which are possible to resolve only by joint efforts;
• the need to create the conditions for mutual cultural enrichment between the nations;
• the expediency to engage the Belarus expatriate community in making more effective foreign and economic policies for Belarus.
The core sense of the policy could be formulated as “regionalism plus a combination of various projects”. The official papers of the Belarus Ministry for Foreign Affairs (1999–2004) define this approach as a collection of five elements:
1. The area of politics and international security. This item places an emphasis on development of a comprehensive political dialogue and the creation of nuclear weapon -free zones in the region.
2. The area of economics. This item places an emphasis on acquiring the maximum involvement in the projects of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the Northern Dimension of the European Union and others.
3. The area of environment. This item places an emphasis on getting an access to the technical help and resources of the European Union and other international structures in the course of realizing joint regional environmental projects.
4. The area of law. This item places an emphasis on fighting against illegal migration and human trafficking.
5. The humanitarian area. This item places an emphasis on the development of the trans-border co-operation between universities and public organizations.
Obstacles on the way of important initiatives
Concerning politics and international security, it is worth noticing that for over more than ten years Belarus has been trying to initiate the creation of the nuclear weapon -free zone in Central and Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, all these attempts have met no support from the Baltic and Scandinavian countries. Almost all western countries declared their unwillingness to support the Belarus resolution submitted once to the United Nations. The draft resolution referred to the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference 1995, when the member-states were welcoming the practice of creation of a nuclear weapon free zone. It also appealed to the assurances of the North Atlantic Council obtained during the ministerial level meeting on 10 December 1996, where the NATO countries declared no intention of extending the locating area of nuclear weapons. The draft resolution called upon the states of Central and Eastern Europe to uphold their decision of not possessing or locating nuclear weapons on their territory. It is also emphasized that the nuclear weapon-processing states should respect the nuclear weapon -free policy conducted by the states in Central and Eastern Europe. Finally, it called for the consideration of the status report on the resolution during the 55th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, within the framework of the discussion on general and complete disarmament.
In response to the Belarus proposal, the representative of Poland stated on behalf of twelve countries including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, that the concept of Belarus was incompatible with the sovereign right of states to contribute to the development of the modern security architecture, as well as to co-operate with and join the Euro-Atlantic structures including NATO. As a result, the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution 53/77 with the Regional Disarmament agenda item, which included a part of the Belarus proposal. However, the issue is still topical.
In the area of co-operation in business and trade there were also a number of programmes which did not yield the desired outcomes. That happened due to certain political reasons, but also due to the openly demonstrated lack of interest of the neighbouring countries to cooperate with Belarus. It was especially obvious between 1998 and 2004, but now the situation is different.
Ameliorating regional and international cooperation
The ideal of close regional co-operation is based on understanding that despite differences in development models, the neighbouring countries of Belarus share economic interests which are partially or completely identical to the economic priorities of Belarus. In regard to improving economic co-operation mechanisms, the adopted policy includes, among others, measures on trade liberalisation and development of investment cooperation, measures on harmonization of the regulatory and legal framework related to the issues of financial and foreign economic activities, elaboration of joint projects on development of the near-border infrastructure and complementary transport and telecommunication systems, arrangement of annual Belarus national expositions in the neighbouring countries and identification of top-priority joint projects on industrial cooperation and provision of state support.
This model of international economic co-operation is aimed at the intensification of direct interaction between the EU and Belarus. It supposes to develop the trans-border co-operation in the European Border Regions (Euroregions), which consist of the administrative districts belonging to different states. For example, the “Neman” Euroregion includes Grodnenskaya oblast (the Republic of Belarus); Podlyasskoe province (the Republic of Poland); Alitusskiy, Mariampolskiy and Vilnnusskiy districts (the Republic of Lithuania); Chernyahovskiy, Nesterovskiy, Gusevskiy, Krasnoznamenskiy and Ozerskiy regions of Kaliningradskaya oblast (the Russian Federation). The “Lake Region” Euroregion consists of Braslavskiy, Verhnedvinskiy, Miorskiy, Postavskiy and Glubokskiy regions (Belarus); Daugavpilsskiy, Kraslavskiy, Prejlskiy and Rezeknenskiy regions including the towns of Daugavpils and Rezekne (Latvia); Zarasajskiy, Ignalinskiy, Utenskiy and Shvenchenskiy regions including the city of Visaginas (Lithuania).
Belarus needs to be included as a full partner in the international co-operation structures of the BSR. Positive experiences have already been attained when Belarus gained an observer status in the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) on 01 July 2009, and started taking an active part in a number of projects including the Baltic Ring Electricity Cooperation and the Baltic Sea States Subregional Cooperation, in which the Grodnenskaya and Vitebskaya oblasts have an observer status since 2001.
Through the CBSS Belarus has also initiated interaction with the Northern Dimension of the European Union in regard to the issues of public health care and social welfare. During the last few years the representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Public Health of Belarus have taken part in the meetings of the Northern Dimension Partnership as experts on the issues of penitentiary health care, health services for young people, workplace safety and fighting against drug distribution.
Since November 2008, Belarus has taken part in “Baltic 21”, an environment-oriented project of the CBSS. The project is designed to develop healthy societies and dynamic ecosystems in a balanced and integrated manner. For this purpose it is supposed to take the following measures:
• development of long-term co-operation between governmental and non-governmental organizations of the neighbouring states concerning the issues of environmental monitoring, environmentally friendly activities and mitigation of natural disasters;
• interaction with the international specialized organizations for the purpose of promoting regional interests and getting technical aid for solving environmental problems;
• elaboration and implementation of joint projects with the states having direct concern over the restoration of forests, rivers and lakes;
• conducting regular monitoring of nuclear power plants and other factories and reporting to project partners about the results of this monitoring.
A range of important achievements have also been obtained in the area of humanitarian co-operation. These include, for instance, opening information and cultural centres in the states of the region, exchanging television programmes, as well as arranging neighbour-states' culture days, tours for theatrical companies and musical groups and joint conferences and forums.
The implementation period of this policy is based on the short-, middle- and long-term perspectives, and all steps and measures are planned to be taken in accordance with the development of the policy. Judging by the official arrangements and practical steps, this is a thoroughly elaborated approach with all necessary attributes for being considered an all-sufficient concept. It has been developed on the basis of the national interests and unbiased estimates of cooperative relations between the neighbouring states. However, the progress made to date is quite modest. It has to be emphasized that the Belarus’ lack of vision of regional co-operation is not the only inhibiting factor, although this vision does need better elaboration. Nevertheless, another important hindrance to tackle is the unwillingness of partners to build co-operation with Belarus.
Consequently, there are two main reasons that hinder the development of co-operation. The first is closely connected to the development of the domestic policy of Belarus. The EU's general position on Belarus has long been based on the principles of “minimalism”, i.e. bringing cooperation to the minimum. This approach later proved to be misguided and Belarus was invited to be part of the EU's Eastern Partnership. The second comes down to the lack of co-operation modalities in the relations between the neighbouring states. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the former Soviet Baltic republics kept equalling Belarus with Russia and refrained from any kind of co-operation with it. This policy has also proved to be irrational and short-sighted.
The regional co-operation renaissance is driven by a variety of causes and conditions. The global financial and economic crisis has forced the countries to reconsider all opportunities for co-operation. Belarus has managed to keep its economy industrial, and that paves the way for industrial cooperation. “Alkomtrans”, a branch of the Minsk motorcar factory working in Latvia, serves as an example of such cooperation. Expansion and enhancement of the Belarus commodity distribution network is another avenue for the development of co-operation. The regional co-operation on transport also offers great opportunities. For example, 60 per cent of the Belarus potash fertilizers go through the Baltic port Ventspils, one of the biggest terminals for the transportation of potash fertilizers.
St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad are two important partners for Belarus in terms of trade and economic contacts. However, within the framework of the Eastern Partnership, Belarus has a joint position with Lithuania on more than thirty regional projects. The projects are mostly related to the energy issue, which is so sensitive for the whole region. There is also good progress in environmental cooperation between Belarus and other countries of the BSR.
The contribution of Belarus in regional security is also worth mentioning. A range of Belarusian initiatives on fighting against illegal migration and human trafficking have been widely recognized. Moreover, in regard to the soft security issues Belarus, according to the Director General of the International Organization for Migration, is considered a security provider. This field is also open for cooperation.
While speaking about international cooperation, it would be wrong to ignore the cultural and historical contexts. History and culture interlink the nations and states of the region and foreshadow the future developments. The equation is far from simple or quickly resolved, especially when it comes to political issues. On the one hand there are a number of good and strong initiatives; on the other hand there are a lot of contradictions and challenges.
In conclusion, it should be noted that most of the people in Belarus find it comfortable to live in the current social and political system of their country. This background should be taken into consideration by the European community whenever it poses requirements on Belarus as its partner in cooperation projects. It would be more reasonable to build co-operation on the basis of involvement, i.e. to join efforts in each sphere where it is possible to work together. The evidence suggests that developing cooperation in this way may gradually lead to new, good-quality cooperation and to better mutual understanding.
© National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2011
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