International seminar “From acting to influencing: enhancing projects of civil society in Belarus” was held in Vilnius on June 25-26.

When opening the event, Ulad Vialichka, the chairman of the International Consortium "EuroBelarus" urged to escape from excessive formalities and concentrate on the key problems.

“On the one hand, we have a broad range of various projects which are being implemented within Belarusan civil society. On the other hand, we are not sure to what degree all our efforts and actions change the voice of the civil society in the country,” Ulad Vialichka noted.

In the course of the event a number of topical questions will be considered: whether the activity of the civil society has lasting results, and the question of entry points and approaches to the change of the situation in Belarus. The issues connected with enhancing the work of the civil society on local level will be discussed separately. The participants of the seminar will also try to answer the question about the potential of the cultural initiatives aimed at strengthening of the civil society.

“We can hardly expect the appearance of some absolutely new approach that will resolve all our problems,” the chairman of the Consortium "EuroBelarus" assumes. “However, if we manage to fulfill our plans, it can result in formation of brand new ideas as well as answers to the long-standing problems, that can be used in our everyday work”.

Struggling to cope with three strategies

During the introductory panel discussion Andrei Yahorau, political scientist and the head of the Centre for European Transformation (CET), noted that the actors of the Belarusan civil society and political opposition are divided into three groups on the basis of the strategy they prefer to use in order to change the situation in Belarus. The first group prefers to establish dialog with the Belarusan regime; second group is for the public dialog similar to the roundtable in Poland, and the third group believes that only revolution can change situation in Belarus.

When it comes to the EU policy towards Belarus, the first group opposes any sanctions, the second stands for symbolic sanctions, while the third group demands large-scale economic sanctions against Belarusan regime.

“It seems that this situation suggests that any changes in Belarus are impossible. If we look back at the history of the Belarusan civil society over the period of last 10-12 years, we ‘ll get added evidence that unless this problem is resolved, no positive results are possible,” Andrei Yahorau said.

He noticed that in order to increase the effectiveness of help to the Belarusan civil society, donors have to decide what strategy they support so that not to dissipate their energies for all the three of them, as such approach is nothing but support of the current situation in Belarus. The head of CET also recommended to decrease the number intermediaries when helping Belarusan civil society, turn to long-term program forms of aid instead and coordinate with the Belarusan NGOs more.