Brussels temporarily suspended package of sanctions despite lack of change in Minsk regime.

The EU temporarily eased sanctions on Belarus in late October 2015 after the Lukashenko regime released a group of political prisoners and the presidential elections were carried out without mass ‘repression'. But opposition activists argued these signs of goodwill were merely window dressing, in a country where the Belarus strongman's 21 year rule has been marred by accusations of human rights abuses.

More recently, Minsk has attempted to be perceived as the peacemaker between Putin's Russia and Ukraine over the conflict in Donbas. So why did the EU decide to change its policy towards Lukashenko? And what leverage or ability does it have to change the Belarusian political system?

Andrei Yahorau, the director of the Belarus-based think-tank Centre for European Transformation discusses this with Ukraine Today correspondent Tom Bell at the recent Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum in Kyiv, Ukraine:

“Nothing has changed in terms of the human rights situation. Violation of freedom of speech, assemblies and all the political rights in our country; fraud during the election process and so on... I think that the European Union knows this but now we have quite a different geopolitical situation in the context of the war, of military aggression of Russia against Ukraine.”

“[President Lukashenko's involvement in the Minsk peace process] was just a show. In reality, there is no independent position of Belarus from the position of Russia but it has performed a more-or-less neutral (position) without this idiotic propaganda in Belarusian media about this situation [in Ukraine] and this is appreciated by the European Union. The European Union wants to preserve Belarus (in) the sphere of its influence.”

“I don't believe in very fast changes [in Belarus]. I don't believe in our political opposition and political parties because [there is] a huge problem [with] unity among political forces, unity between the political forces and the civil society in Belarus so people do not really have a political alternative to [President] Lukashenko.”