Belarus is reeling from the effects of the wobbling oil price and Western-imposed sanctions on Russia. The economy is now paying for the absence of liberal reforms through a decrease in manufacturing, the depreciation of the national currency and the need for budget cuts. The lack of good economic and political news suggests that the recovery will take a long time. But approaching the bottom provides an opportunity to fix bad economic policies and to build a new economic structure using innovative technologies.
Shortly after welcoming French and German leaders to Minsk, Alexander Lukashenka received EU emissaries from Riga and Brussels. He reassured Latvian foreign minister Edgars Rinkēvičs of Belarus' interest in getting closer to Europe, primarily due to its technologies and resources. Minsk and Paris have stepped up their economic cooperation. Several top-level French corporations, such as Peugeot Citroën and Accor, have begun investing in Belarus.
On 23 February Belarus and other post-Soviet countries celebrated the Day of Defenders of the Fatherland and the Day of Armed Forces. A minute of silence commemorates those who died defending their country. Siarhej Leskiec visited the defenders of Belarus’s border with Lithuania at Losha Border Guard Post in Astraviec region. Border troops also known as the Belarusian Green Berets have been considered the elite of the armed forces since the Soviet times. Lukashenka and both of his older sons served in the border guard, according to the president's official biography.
In recent months the Belarusian police have intensified pressure on young football fans – followers of the 'ultra' subculture. In January police detained at least 69 young ultras. In Salihorsk in late January 20 fans of a local team were detained for holding an unauthorised fireworks show. Several days later, on 31 January, police detained 49 fans at a FC Biaroza – FC Garadzieya match in Minsk. This is a significant number of detainees for a country where football season starts in March with almost no matches in January.
On 6 February a Belarusian businessman received 5 years in prison for enslaving a group of Vietnamese whom he had earlier agreed to deliver to the European Union. Meanwhile, the Belarusian government has defined fighting human trafficking as one of its priorities both domestically and internationally, where it feels it has been successful. The recent US report on trafficking, however, downgraded Belarus' performance in combating the problem due to its abusive legislation and a lack of open access to information on the issue. The positive results from the anti-trafficking campaign are visible in Belarus, though some social groups remain vulnerable to trafficking: women from weak families and men from the regions who go to Russia to work. The government needs to develop both employment and professional education policies to boost jobs for these groups.
Fears that a call for mobilisation was on the horizon sent the public into a panic in Belarus, though the concerns were largely unfounded. The Belarusian military and industrial complex is planning for the future and hopes on orders from Russia, though it remains unclear whether they will procure them. The CSTO creates a strategic defence management system and will try to confront the West in cyberspace and its information operations. Russia is trying to Control CSTO Countries
Whilst 2014 was a bad year for the Belarusian economy on the whole, it brought in plenty of profit for Belavia, Belarusian Airlines and Minsk National Airport. Without any competition from low-cost airlines, Belavia has been able to safely modernise its fleet of planes and not lose its grip on the market. Whereas in the past the National Airport looked like a trip back to the USSR, nowadays travelling from Minsk is much more comfortable. Belavia is just one example of this shift in the industry, and it is making more money and becoming increasingly modern. For instance, passengers will have no trouble checking in using a mobile device and they even offer free meals and beverages, which is rare for short-haul flights these days.
Just before German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande came for negotiations on Ukraine to Minsk, Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei visited Germany. The foreign minister's trip on 5-8 February was just one of numerous steps that the Belarusian government is taking recently to repair its relationship with the West. This has had some success. Lukashenka's “role in the attempts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine made us to look in another way at the leader of Belarus,” an official of the European External Action Service said. Given the Belarusian geopolitical situation plus that its economy is so closely aligned with Russia only gradual evolution can lead to a successful rapprochement with the West. And this process may have been launched now as the Ukrainian crisis has made Minsk and the West look at each other in a different light.
EU foreign policy towards Belarus, who pays for journalism, the new martial law and Western assistance to Belarus are among the topics which kept Belarusian analysts busy recently. Foreign Policy Rethinking the EU Policies Towards Belarus – Andrei Liakhovich, the Director of the Centre for Political Education in Minsk, believes that relations with Belarus are not a pressing issue of EU foreign policy. While the EU has leverage over Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime, it does not use it, as it fears pushing Belarus more towards Russia. Such fears are groundless. Lukashenka’s regime will not cross the dangerous line of integration with Russia under any circumstances.
European Perspective launches a map of public hearings in 2015 to strengthen the participation of Belarusians in public affairs. Perspektiva holds an Entrepreneurs Forum. Astravets becomes the 9th city reached by Mova Nanova language courses. Creative community from Brest launches regular sarcastic videos about everyday life of Belarusians. Campaigns in Minsk Superheroes take the Minsk streets. Last year, the Centre for Cultural Management with TUT.BY support launched the project ‘Superheroes School/ Creative City’. The team of 42 volunteers is engaged in the development and implementation of urban socio-cultural projects with the involvement of the city administration, local communities and businesses. Currently 'superheroes' conduct field research in the Minsk areas. In February, the School organises public lectures on the development of urban communities.
The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine agreed to hold peace talks in Minsk on Wednesday, 11 February, in an effort to avert a full-scale war in Ukraine. The last German and French leaders to visit Minsk were Adolph Hitler in 1941 and Georges Pompidou in 1973. In the twenty years of Alexander Lukashenka's reign in Belarus, only two European leaders (Silvio Berlusconi and Dalia Grybauskaitė) set their foot in Minsk. As the international community eagerly awaits positive results of the peace talks in Minsk, the Belarusian public is also impatient to see whether Lukashenka will be able to charm his European guests in the year of the presidential election in Belarus.
At the end of January, senior Belarusian officials made statements that threatened to undermine Belarus' good relations with the Vatican, severing ties that the country had worked for years to establish. Aliaksandr Lukashenka and the Commissioner for Religions spoke out against the presence of foreign Catholic priests, most of whom are Polish citizens, in Belarusian parishes, – a tradition has that existed since the USSR's collapse. Belarus has failed to create its own national church in the course of its history, and the authorities view the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches as foreign elements - one from the East and another from the West, - rather as a part of local religious traditions.
During his "open dialogue" with the press on 29 January, President Alexander Lukashenka continued walking the fine line between alarming Russia and progressing Belarus' relations with the West. The Belarusian ruler made it clear that he appreciated the noticeable shift in European and US policy towards Belarus, all the while reaffirming his mistrust of the West at the same time. He swore allegiance to the nation's "sacred ties" with Russia, though he also insisted that he would never "go to war with the West to oblige someone".
Relations between Russia and Belarus appear to have taken a turn for the worse as the new year begins. As Belarus's economy stumbles, Minsk tries to shore up the Belarusian ruble while simultaneously blaming Moscow for some of its economic troubles. More striking than the economic issues is a new law that would see any activity similar to what happened in Crimea or Eastern Ukraine as an act of war against Belarus. The vague language of the law looks more like a warning to Belarus's military ally Russia than to NATO forces.