Ales Byalatski: “EU should proceed from position of high standards in issues of democratization of Belarus”
- 17.10.2008, 12:31
A discussion “Belarus after elections: time for rapprochement policy?” was held in German Bundestag with participation of Belarusian opposition.
Deputies of the German faction of Bundestag Alliance '90/The Greens and Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union of Bavaria faction took part in the German-Belarusian discussion in Bundestag. The Belarusian side was represented by Vice president of the International Human Rights League Ales Byalatski, the chairman of the Helsinki Committee Aleh Hulak, and deputy chairman of the United Civil party Yaraslau Ramanchuk and other representatives of the Belarusian democratic community.
Agreement of opinion in evaluating “election”
“The first panel discussion was dedicated to the results of the “elections”, not so much to forecasts, but to coverage of the situation, interpretation of the events. And here we have uninteresting agreement in opinion, as everybody was rather skeptical to this “election process”, so to say. And the evaluation of the political analyst of the OSCE mission which was engaged in observation in Belarus, and the evaluation of our internal observers, as well as comments of experts taking part in the discussion were almost identical.
Everybody as rather unanimous saying that there wasn’t election in fact, it was just a facade of election. A very insignificant liberalization of the situation took place, related with release of political prisoners. And there are no other changes,” Ales Byalatski said to Deutsche Welle.
Pragmatism in evaluation of “concessions”
Besides, participants of the discussion argued how the situation after adoption of the resolution of the European Union on Belarus would change, and in which way relations with the Belarusian authorities should be constructed by the European Union and Germany in particular, as representatives of the German Foreign Ministry and deputies were present during the discussion.
To the question what policy of the EU towards the Belarusian leadership would be most acceptable, the human rights activist answered: “Certain steps have been made. Sanctions against some officials previously banned from entering the EU, including Lukashenka, have been lifted. Some response to that positively, some are suspicious. But I think today an absolutely pragmatic policy of evaluation of real wishes and real concessions of the Belarusian regime towards the situation with human rights, NGOs and so on should be conducted. There shouldn’t be such a delight about the regime’s reforming, so let’s open all the possible doors”.
According to the vice president of the International Human Rights Federation, now as never before.the Belarusian government and Alyaksandr Lukashenka in particular need liberalization of relations with Europe, improvement of economic relations and lifting of economic sanctions. “It is clear that he needs allies firstly to stay in power, and for an economic crisis not to happen. In this situation, I think the European Union should proceed from the position of high standards in issues of democratization of Belarus and human rights”.
The event was organised wit the support of the parliamentary faction Alliance '90/The Greens, German-Belarusian Association, Heinrich Böll Foundation and Konrad Adenauer foundation.