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Negotiations with IMF, death penalty, change of the Constitution – digest of Belarusian analytics

Ostrogorski Centre analyzes Belarusian foreign and national security policy. Belarus Security Blog releases the September analysis of the situation in the field of national security and defence.

Prelude to KEF 2016: Aliaksandr Čubryk argues that the key reason for Belarus‘...

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Gathering signatures for the state recognition of white-red-white flag. Photo: belarusinfocus.info

Ostrogorski Centre analyzes Belarusian foreign and national security policy. Belarus Security Blog releases the September analysis of the situation in the field of national security and defence.

Prelude to KEF 2016: Aliaksandr Čubryk argues that the key reason for Belarus‘ negotiations with IMF is the recognition of structural reform needs.

Grigory Ioffe: a healthy dose of realpolitik might be a good prescription for the Belarus’ indecision malaise between Russia and West. Belarus in Focus: since the September parliamentary elections, the general political trends in the country remain. Analysts consider why Lukashenka wants to change the Constitution.

Andrej Kazakievič believes that Belarusian expert community needs to step out of isolation. This and more in the new edition of digest of Belarusian analytics.

Foreign and security policy

Ostrogorski Centre: Belarus becomes neutral to survive – Ostrogorski Centre releases the first major publication on neutrality in Belarusian foreign and national security policy authored by Siarhei Bohdan and Gumer Isaev. For a long time, the trend towards a real neutrality of Belarus was misinterpreted as Minsk opportunistically moving back and forth between Moscow and the West. Yet by the mid-2010s, these elements of neutrality became a reliable part of Belarusian foreign and national security policy.

Belarus the object of two peculiar tugs of war – Grigory Ioffe observes that pulled in opposite directions by two peculiar tugs of war – dependency versus magnanimity from Russia and interests versus values from the West – Belarus retains composure but suffers from lingering economic decline. The expert believes that a healthy dose of realpolitik might be a good prescription for the indecision malaise.

Situation in the field of national security and defense of Belarus. September 2016 – According to the Belarus Security Blog’s monthly monitoring, the Belarusian authorities are trying to get the problems of democracy and human rights out of the Belarusian-American dialogue replacing them by regional security issues. The economic crisis and the compression of the Russian financial support forced the official Minsk to be more active in the western direction.

Negotiations between Belarus and IMF: key points and balance of interests – Aliksandr Čubryk, IPM Research Center director, during a round table organised by the state news agency BelTA notes that "Belarus applied to the IMF for support under the enhanced structural changes mechanism, not for the stabilisation program, like last time. That is, Belarus recognises the existence of structural imbalances, that should be addressed to gain sustainable economic growth."

Belarusian politics

Election trends remain, cyclic recurrence interrupted – Belarus in Focus notes that for 1,5 months since the September parliamentary elections, general political trends in the country remain: the political environment’s mitigation, constructivisation of opposition, soft Belarusisation, etc. Thus, the vicious circle has been broken when liberalisation trends replaced by the deteriorating political situation after the electoral campaigns.

Lukashenka will change the constitution to hand over power? Hardly – On October 7, Aliaksandr Lukashenka in his address to outgoing and newly elected members of the parliament made a statement on the possibility to adjust Belarus' Constitution to meet present-day challenges. Analysts believe that a possible referendum on changing the Constitution is most likely a PR action because so far Lukashenka is not going to give any niches to anyone.

Society

Why Belarusians want, but do not give birth to children – Belarusians dream of a family with two or three children, and men want a greater number of children. These are the results of a recent survey of the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS). The reproductive desire is constrained mainly by economic factors – availability of housing, child benefits, availability of kindergartens and the overall stability of the economy.

Crowdfunding turned from exotics into inevitable future – Trends in national funding, its inevitability and unqualified efficiency were discussed at the recent Second Conference on Crowdfunding in Minsk. In particular, the head of the Belarusian crowdfunding platform Ulej.by notes its success: in the first 12 months, the platform has attracted about $80,000, while every 4 months the amount of funding is doubling.


A new approach to professional development of civil servants in Belarus A wider use of foreign educational programmes and activities could become an essential component of the new approach to professional development of civil servants in Belarus. Read more

Safety measure or an ineffective tool for revenge? "Duel" on the death penalty in Belarus– Is the Belarusian society ready for the abolition of the death penalty or that is still needed? The TUT.by talk show Duel brings together human rights activists who take fundamentally different positions on the issue – Andrej Paluda, Human Rights Defenders against the Death Penalty campaign and Aliena Krasoŭskaja-Kaspiarovič, Region 119 human rights organisation.

Belarus resumes executions after EU sanctions dropped – The Guardian raises the points of the recent Human rights report on death penalty. According to a landmark investigation of FIDH and the Viasna human rights centre, Belarus, the last European country to retain capital punishment has resumed sentencing people to death since EU sanctions against its president were dropped this year.

Andrej Kazakievič: Belarus’ expert community needs to step out of isolation – Andrej Kazakievič, the director of Political Sphere Institute, shares the results of the 6th International Congress of Belarusian Studies that took place on 7-9 October, in Kaunas. Namely, Kazakievič notes that a new generation of analysts is growing as well as the Congress fosters and expands influence of the Belarusian expert community.

Belaruspolicy

The tax system of Belarus. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of taxation in Belarus. The author compares the dynamics of the tax rates and the tax revenue in Belarus to the world averages and to other countries of the Eurasian Union. The paper studies the harmonisation of the rates within the union and the efficiency of tax collection. Finally, the author discusses two possible reforms of taxation in Belarus and its possible consequences: an increase of VAT and reintroduction of the progressive personal income tax.


The tax system of Belarus The two possible reforms of taxation in Belarus and its possible consequences are discussed: an increase of VAT; reintroduction of the progressive personal income tax. Read more

A new approach to professional development of civil servants in Belarus. In order to adapt the skills of Belarusian civil servants to the rapidly changing modern environment and to develop their ability to generate and implement non-standard management tasks, Belarusian civil service needs a new approach to their professional development. A wider use of foreign educational programmes and activities could become an essential component of this new approach.

Belarus Digest prepared this overview on the basis of materials provided by Pact. This digest attempts to give a richer picture of the recent political and civil society events in Belarus. It often goes beyond the hot stories already available in English-language media.

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