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The Sixth Annual Assembly of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) in Batumi is coming to a closure. What did happen at it and what didn’t? Did it come up to the expectations or not?

EuroBelarus Information Service turned to Ulad Vialichka, one of the moderators of the meeting in Batumi, the Director General of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, with these questions:

— The main thing that happened at this EaP CSF is a more serious understanding of the challenges that the countries of the Eastern Partnership are facing. Safety issues are dominating, as the countries-participants of the program both at the level of the governments and at the level of the civil society don’t feel themselves protected in today’s situation. It is related to the way Russia is behaving in the region, as well as with the lenience and indecisiveness of the EU in relation to the reformation of the Eastern Partnership with an allowance for these challenges. Thus, the chief context of the dialogs in the course of the EaP CSF is anxiety. No one charges EaP off; it still remains almost the only offer of the multilateral format that all countries of the initiative can use. But at the same time it encounters difficulties, which is recognized by the civil societies of all six countries-participants. Even the representatives of the states that signed the EU Association Agreement state that.

What didn’t happen in Batumi is the switch of the EaP CSF to the proactive position. The discussions are still led in the regime of evaluation of a difficult situation rather than in the regime of preparation to actions in such situation; i.e. we call for active position, but we don’t quite know what we should do.

The good thing is that the new strategy of the Civil Society Forum fro 2015-2017 was adopted at the meeting in Batumi. Now we have a strategic frame, a document that describes the challenges relevant for today. But we still have questions regarding the mechanisms of work with these challenges, which could become the main topic for discussion not only during, but also after the EaP CSF. And I would count on these issues during negotiations.

— Many participants of the EaP CSF noted that the representatives of leaders from the EU and Georgia were absent. Does it mean that the EaP CSF is degenerating and losing its importance?

— The fact that we didn’t have high officials at the meeting in Batumi, especially European officials, is a very bad sign for us. Before that all five Civil Society Forums could boast the highest representation at the level of the European Commissioner Štefan Füle. And the fact that this time he sent his video message instead is nothing but the drop of status and attention to the EaP CSF as to the instrument of the Eastern Partnership, despite all the affirmations of the officials. It is less relevant for the Georgian officials; I think that the reaction of the official Tbilisi to the EaP CSF is related to the absence of the EU representatives. Nevertheless, there is hope that the absence of the EU officials has to do with the transformation of the European Commission membership, whose authority are in power for three weeks only.

— In your opinion, what did the Belarusan delegation get from the participation in the EaP CSF?

— For now the work in groups is going on and we can’t have intense communication and make conclusions. But what I learned for myself is that the first thing Belarusans should think about is guarantees of civil society’s participation in the EaP processes, especially in the inter-state relations. As now we observe the separation of communication on two parallel streams: a dialog with the civil society and a dialog with the government, which goes against our interests. By this we, basically, move towards outsiders’ area. Perhaps, there is also our fault in the fact that we didn’t manage to realize the opportunities we had earlier; but on the other hand, I see that the diplomatic line of the official Minsk towards stamping out civil society from the EaP processes is winning. That is why I think that the opportunity to sit at one table with the Minsk officials and discuss common problems that our country has is our main concern.

— But can the EaP CSF influence that?

— The whole dynamics of the Eastern Partnership can. This opportunity depends a lot on how such problems are interpreted by the governments of the EU countries and the EU itself. For now they don’t treat it too seriously and are ready to agree on the tactics suggested by the official Minsk, I think. In this case we will rather be a ritual element of the Eastern Partnership that introduces some content. I hope we can still avoid that.