On Friday, Belarusian Foreign Ministry declared that it would not prolong the residence permit for the Swedish ambassador Stefan Ericsson. It caused predictable sharp reaction of Sweden and the European Union. It also put an end to speculations that participation of the...
Belarusian analytical reports and papers focused on effectiveness of foreign aid to Belarusian civil society, impact of poverty on political activism and foreign policy. Amnesty International and the US Department of State published their annual human rights reports which touch...
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka highlighted the need to modernise the Belarusian economy in his annual speech for the national Parliament on 8 May. These words coincide with a goal of the new EU project "Dialogue on Modernization for Belarus"....
The Ambassadors of Poland, Lithuania and Sweden have returned to Minsk and their colleagues are on the way to the Belarusian capital. It seems that EU-Belarus relations have broken the deadlock, but they remain difficult and the EU has...
Former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov and his main campaign aide Dzmitry Bandarenka have been released from prison on the eve of the Christian Orthodox Easter. It looks like the first step in the de-escalation of the worst EU-Belarus...
Although formally a member of the Eastern Partnership (EaP), unfortunately Belarus does not participate in any of its programmes. It is excluded from visa liberalisation, the EaP flagship initiatives, and bilateral track programmes: for example, the Small and Medium-Size Enterprise...
Despite unfavourable environment, Belarusian NGOs continue to launch various initiatives and campaigns in Belarus. Most of initiatives relate to education, human rights and social issues. However, conferences on political issues have to take place outside of the country -...
Conference of the Belarusian National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society, unsuccessful legal challenge of new laws restricting civil society activities were among the main developments last week. Conference of the Belarusian National Platform....
Last week Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka visited Tajikistan where he claimed that Belarus should not be blamed for the current difficulties in Belarus-EU and Belarus-USA relations and that his country 'sincerely tries to establish a constructive interaction'. This is...
The results of the second summit of the Eastern Partnership say nothing new about the EU policy in Belarus and in Eastern Europe. As always, the EU leadership is busy with internal problems. In light of the financial collapse...
The main reason why the second ever Eastern Partnership Summit made it to the headlines of some Western media was a Belarus-related scandal. Otherwise, the Warsaw event got extremely poor coverage by leading news agencies. That clearly points to the...
Official Minsk refused to take part in the Eastern Partnership Summit in Warsaw this week. According to the special statement made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 30 September, the organizers of the Eastern Partnership Summit have applied an unprecedented...
Eleven more released last week, but the most important political prisoners - three former presidential candidates and a leading human rights activist, are still in jail. On the civil society front, the most visible events relate to promotion of...
While the European Union is yet again considering using sticks against the Belarus regime, it is unclear what carrots it can offer. Lukashenka's opponents often point to the de-facto exclusion of Belarus from the Eastern Partnership after the post-election...
