Jacek Protasiewicz strange statements

• 24.11.2009, 13:36

Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita published an interview with MEP Jacek Protasiewicz, the Chairman of the EP Delegation for Relations with Belarus.

Polskie Radio offers an extract from the interview:

– Lukashenka is changing. He is not a pro-Russian politician anymore. SI the opposition changing? Can independence be their only slogan today?

– The slogan used to be “Lukashenka must resign”. He united pro-western conservators and pro-Moscow communists. But the Belarusian president has turned into the truest Belarusian since Lukashenka and Putin squirreled over huge money. He tells he speaks Belarusian at home and defends sovereignty. But is pragmatism, not patriotism.

– It’s difficult for the opposition to use the Belarusian issue in trading with Lukashenka. What arguments do they use now?

– The opposition leaders understand that the slogan of Belarusian independence is losing its effectiveness. The opposition has also understood that quarrelling with Lukashenka may be dangerous as Russia can make advantage of it. The group led by Alyaksandr Milinkevich begins to create new priorities. If two or three years ago they had soonest establishment of democratic power as challenge number 1, now it is a threat of seizure of Belarus by Russia. The opposition sees that while Lukashenka is defending the independence of Belarus it is possible to start certain cooperation with him.

– How should the West behave? Should the West extend sanctions or cooperate with the dictator?

– I think extension and suspension sanctions is the best policy. The message is that the EU doesn’t recognize Lukashenka because his power is illegitimate. Having suspended the sanctions, we activated the diplomatic relations and give a clear signal to the Belarusian authorities: financial aid, you depend on more and more, is possible only within the Eastern Partnership programme, but it needs changes in political sphere as well.