There are serious external and internal problems in the Belarusan National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, and the new membership of the Coordinating Committee is expected to occupy a proactive position.

On June 21 a Conference of the Belarusan National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum began in Minsk. The subject of the meeting is “Belarus in circumstances of regional crisis and stagnation of the Eastern Partnership”.

Describing the work of the civil society organizations in 2013-2014, Ulad Vialichka, former Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Belarusan National Platform (BNP) noted that this year during the work of BNP were conducted as many events and actions as never before; however, they had almost no influence on common situation, which means that unfortunately, quantity never turned into quality.

Ulad Vialichka stated that the role of the civil society in Eastern Partnership and Belarus-Europe relations has weakened. Describing the level of interest in dialog with the Belarusan National Platform that a number of European structures demonstrate, Ulad Vialichka marked that “they talk with the civil society because it has always been a tradition to do so.” At the same time, he also noted that civil society is taking increasingly more active political role.

Vialichka also paid attention to a number of external challenges that the Belarusan National Platform of EaP CSF faces, among which is Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. This situation demonstrated that Eastern Partnership doesn’t have well-working instruments to confront Russian policy in the region. Besides, over the last year civil society confronted bureaucratization and formalization when participating in the EaP initiatives.

The issue of formalization of methods in the Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum was thoroughly analyzed by Andrei Yahorau, Country Facilitator for Belarus of the EaP CSF and a new Chairman of the Coordinating Committee. He pointed out “that EaP CSF board basically did nothing in the situation of Ukrainian crisis.” Judging from the dynamics of actions of the Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Andrei Yahorau concluded that more active actions on the part of CSF are not to be expected unless the initiative comes directly from the national platforms of countries-members.

Stating the serious crisis in the Eastern Partnership, the participants of the Conference spoke about the need to activate the work of the Belarusan National Platform by means of civil society organizations themselves.

As Ulad Vialichka noted, Belarusan National Platform is to become a place for concentration of pro-European groups within the civil society and provide citizens with a clear alternative of Belarus’ development in European direction.

The success of this plan depends much on how Belarusan National Platform will be developing in the future. According to Uladzimir Matskevich, the head of the Board of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, BNP should be as autonomous from the Eastern Partnership as possible so that not to sink together with this initiative.

This topic will be developed further during discussions and statements that are foreseen by the program of the Conference.

EuroBelarus Information Service