On 25 March 2016, president Lukashenka confirmed his support for the gradual 3 year increase of the retirement age, currently at 55 years for women and 60 years for men. The government had been discussing the pension reform in the previous years, but the president dismissed it as “untimely.” Now, with the presidential elections in the past, Lukashenka is determined to proceed with the unpopular measures. Surprisingly, along with the reactions from the Belarusians, the Russian ambassador to Belarus, Aleksandr Surikov felt the need to make a statement on the Belarusian pension reform. On 31 March, he hinted that people might start looking for jobs and better retirement options elsewhere. Obviously, he implied migration to Russia, which along with Belarus, currently is leading the list of countries with the lowest retirement age.
Alcohol sales are an important source of revenue for the Belarusian state, which holds a monopoly on its importation and production. In hard economic times, however, many Belarusians have turned to a cheaper alternative – samahon. Literally translated as “self-distilled”, samahon is a highly potent moonshine brewed from grain and potato starch. Even though samahon is officially banned, it continues to be brewed by generations of villagers. The law enforcement agencies regularly crack down on the most shameless “samahonshchyki” (bootleggers), often using drones to locate samahon breweries hidden deep in the woods. When such backcountry operations are uncovered, the offenders are hard to identify and thus often go unpunished. The police have turned a blind eye toward smaller-scale producers of moonshine, however.
A guest post from Masha Cheriakova, a social entrepreneur and writer of Heta Belarus dzietka. She has made a major life decision a little more than 3 years ago to develop social entrepreneurship in Belarus. This led her to a purpose-driven life. Now she is a social entrepreneur. After having worked for the past 3 years with Belarusian social entrepreneurs, I continue my mission to develop social entrepreneurship in Belarus. For the coming 3 years I will be working together with three NGO's in setting up an acceleration program for 170 aspiring social entrepreneurs.
On 23 March Evgenia Shipova, official representative of Uber Technologies in the CIS region, announced that Minsk was developing faster than in any other city in Europe, Africa or the Middle East. Within four months, 80,000 city residents used this online taxi service. Feeling threatened by the competition, regular taxi drivers have requested that the government investigate Uber activities. In contrast, most customers seem rather content with Uber. People are enjoying the high quality of service and hope it will promote a client-oriented framework which will influence the market as a whole.
Saturday 2 April witnessed intensive clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijan forces in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The same day Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenka ordered the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Relations to start consultations with their Armenian and Azerbaijan colleagues. Moreover, the Belarusian leader held telephone conversations with Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev and Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan. In spite of Belarus’ membership of the OSCE Minsk group, which has been the only more or less active platform for negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since 1992, this reaction of the Belarusian authorities demonstrates their deeper interests and concerns about the situation.
Stallholders gather outside Tax Ministry's to demand abolition of new rules – no breakthrough though. Authorities suspend criminal case against former presidential candidate Alieś Michalievič. Press Club Belarus holds official opening ceremony in Minsk. Decree 98 will not affect calls inside Skype and Viber. BISS and Press Club launch Analytical Club governed by Chatham House rules. Liberal Club held a round table devoted to the reform of the pension system in Belarus.
On 28 March 2016 the Council of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilisation and Development (EFSD) approved the provision of a new loan to Belarus. In the meantime, the export and real estate market established new numbers of their record fall, questioning the limits of slowdown in Belarus. In such a situation the government tries to secure state financial support – President Alexander Lukashenka has signed a new decree that grants funding only for profitable strategic investment projects.
On 22-23 March, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Witold Waszczykowski visited Belarus, as he explained, to normalise relations "without any pre-conditions". Prior to Waszczykowski's visit, Alexander Lukashenka had not yet confirmed whether he would meet with the Polish minister. Despite the friendly atmosphere, the visit showed that the two countries still disagree on many issues, such as a small cross-border movements and human rights. It remains unlikely that significant changes will happen in these areas. However, both countries want to agree to disagree and make steps towards better relations.
As soon as one large-scale control check of combat readiness ended in February, the Belarusian army command launched another one in mid-March. Minsk also strengthened its territorial defence troops by introducing regular training and providing these units with their own equipment and materials. Meanwhile, Belarusian officials reiterated the following: national armed forces are getting ready to fight “terrorists” and “extremists” rather than engage in major conflicts. In a regional context it means Minsk prepares for a Donbas-like scenarios of destabilisation and will do everything to stay away from any military confrontation in the region involving Russia and NATO.
Economic difficulties push Belarusian authorities to extraordinary ways of gathering revenues. They continue arrests of top businessmen, regardless of their position in Lukashenka's apparatus, on tax evasion charges, allegedly waiting for a big payoff. In domestic politics, the authorities try to modernise Belarus' political system and raise the role of loyal political parties and associations without introducing major changes to the authoritarian model. Belarusian programmers sell MSQRD, an IT startup, to Facebook. All of these and more in this edition of State Press Digest.
In 2015, real wages declined everywhere in Belarus save Minsk, according to recently-published data from the Belarusian Statistical Committee. This easily explains why so many Belarusians are moving from the regions to the capital. The role of Minsk in the demography and economy of Belarus keeps growing, while the periphery is falling into depression. People there live worse and for fewer years than in the capital. The authorities recognise a third of districts of Belarus as depressed, but they can only reverse this trend on condition that they fix the economy in the whole country and adopt a pro-growth package deal for the regions.
In 1905 his grandmother Ida left the village of Novy Svierzhan, about 60 km (46 miles) to the southwest of Minsk. At the age of 13 she set out to travel with her family to the United States of America. She never returned. In her perfect English with no trace of an accent she rarely reminisced about her past. One hundred and ten years later at the age of 65 he travelled back to her birthplace to discover his roots and another country. He found the places, but they carry no memories. He found a country which preserves few traces of his ancestors. And yet Professor Krohn thought it was a trip worth making. But without a local, this would have been nearly impossible.
The removal of sanctions against Belarus earlier this year has led to increased interest from institutional investors such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Alain Pilloux, Acting Vice President of this major development bank visited Belarus last week as a part of a delegation, which met with Belarusian officials, including the president, businesses, representatives of think tanks and other stakeholders. EBRD officials expressed cautious optimism about the prospect of extending their cooperation to Belarusian authorities. In the past, their role in the country was limited to supporting the private sector and very limited contact with the government. With EBRD activities in Russia nearly frozen after the Ukraine crisis and instability in the Arab world, Belarus has good chances of attracting EBRD funding.
On 10 March 2016, Minsk hosted an international conference titled The Death Penalty: Transcending the Divide. According to Stavros Lambrinidis, the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, a moratorium on the death penalty would send a positive signal for relations between Belarus and the EU and improve the international image of Belarus. The existence of the death penalty has contributed to the pariah image of Belarus – it lost its guest status at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) after the 1996 referendum, when more than 80 per cent of the population voted in favour of maintaining capital punishment.