Ever since they became neighbours in 2004, Belarus has posed a foreign policy conundrum for the European Union, but the crisis in relations between Europe and Minsk in recent years has made this policy debate both more fraught and more acutely geopolitically relevant. EU policymakers face some difficult dilemmas with regard to Belarus. This chapter will analyse the EU’s core interests regarding Belarus, as well as different policy recommendations that have recently been made regarding how the West, and the EU in particular, should deal with Belarus. It primarily contrasts the normative or principled approach that the EU has by and large pursued with more pragmatic alternatives based on engaging Minsk in order to strengthen its sovereignty and maximise its strategic autonomy vis-à-vis Moscow, rather than seeking domestic political transformation.
The EU’s core interests regarding Belarus
A good starting point for reviewing the policy debate regarding Belarus is to look at the European Union’s core interests in Belarus, which have essentially been twofold. First of all, Europe’s main policy objective has been to promote its norms and values, which has primarily been meant to democratise Belarus.[111] This goal has not only been underpinned by the EU’s normative agenda of spreading democratic governance, political liberty, and human rights, but also by a “liberal” belief that the spread of democracy and prosperity will enhance regional security.[112] The EU has aimed to promote its norms and values by, on the one hand, engaging Belarusian civil society in the hope of bringing about change from below; and, on the other hand, by punishing the Lukashenka regime with sanctions and diplomatic isolation whenever it seems to be moving away from political liberalisation and upholding human rights.[113]
The second core interest of the EU has been to strengthen Belarus’ sovereignty and increase its strategic autonomy by offering it a geopolitical alternative to the Russian Federation.[114] This objective is grounded on a more “realist” understanding of security, aimed at limiting Russia’s influence in the region, and has an important military dimension as well. Indeed, preventing Belarus from becoming a permanent Russian military base is in the interest of the EU and NATO. Limiting – and ideally reversing – Russia’s military presence in Belarus increases the security of NATO’s Eastern Flank, especially given the key role that Belarus could play in case of a Russian attack on the Baltic States by helping Russia to control the Suwałki Gap through which NATO reinforcements could arrive from Poland.[115]
For many years, Western analysts and policymakers have generally regarded these two interests as compatible, even mutually reinforcing, as democratisation was widely regarded as the most promising instrument for turning Belarus’ geopolitical orientation away from Russia. Developments in recent years, however, have increasingly called this compatibility into question. In fact, already in 2017 Paul Hansbury pointed out that the negative conditionality supposedly needed to advance the democratisation of Belarus tends to increase the country’s dependence on Russia and thereby undermines its sovereignty. Therefore, he argued, the democratisation of Belarus and enhancing Belarusian sovereignty cannot be pursued simultaneously. Instead, according to Hansbury, the EU has to make a difficult decision between these two objectives. If the objective of choice would be democratisation, the EU would have to pursue a strategy of isolating the Lukashenka regime and putting pressure on it, as it has been doing in recent years. But if the EU were to prioritise Belarus’ sovereignty, it would have to opt for pragmatic engagement with the Lukashenka regime.[116] Hansbury thus pointed out a fundamental trade-off in Western policy vis-à-vis Belarus – an issue that has, for obvious reasons, gained in relevance and urgency in the years since 2020.
The normative or principled approach
In line with Hansbury’s analysis, policy analysts have largely put forward two types of strategies that the EU can pursue vis-à-vis Belarus: a normative or principled approach, focused on isolating and sanctioning the Lukashenka regime as long as it refuses to significantly improve its human rights record and democratise the Belarusian political system; and a pragmatic policy strategy focused on engaging with the regime despite its many ethical shortcomings, primarily in order to provide Belarus with geopolitical alternatives to Russia. Nonetheless, in recent years some analysts have been searching for a middle ground between these two extremes as well.
The dominant view among Western policymakers and analysts since the 2000s has been that EU policy should indeed prioritise the democratisation of Belarus. This has meant engaging with Belarus and building economic, political, and social ties between it and Europe in exchange for concessions on human rights and political liberalisation. It has also meant isolating and punishing the Lukashenka regime when it has increased repression and failed to make meaningful political concessions. Since 2020, this policy approach has also included withholding the recognition of Lukashenka as the legitimate president of Belarus.[117] In line with this approach, the Council of the European Union in October 2020 stated that a review of its policies vis-à-vis Belarus would be conditional upon the Belarusian authorities respecting “principles of democracy, the rule of law and human rights.”[118] To the extent that democracy promotion has not worked so far, analysts advocating the normative approach argue for patience and for increasing the pressure on the Lukashenka regime through sanctions and diplomatic isolation.[119]
Several critiques have been made of this policy approach. First of all, some have argued that the ineffectiveness of sanctions is not primarily a matter of long-term stamina or of closing loopholes, but is instead inherent in this approach. After all, from the perspective of the Lukashenka regime the risk of losing power associated with political liberalisation far exceeds the rewards of diversifying its foreign (economic) relations towards Europe.[120] As Yuliya Miadzvetskaya put it, “it is not realistic … to expect that the regime will commit political suicide so that sanctions are lifted.”[121] Similarly, Shraibman has made the point that “[t]oday, the West’s asking price for sanctions relief is incompatible with the survival of Lukashenko’s regime: sweeping democratization and an end to supporting Russia’s war.”[122] As a result, Western sanctions and diplomatic isolation have repeatedly – but especially in recent years – driven Minsk into increased dependence on Moscow.[123]
Hansbury has also pointed out that the EU’s sanctioning policy has been inconsistent from a normative perspective. Other post-Soviet regimes – like the ones in Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan – have had worse records on political liberties and human rights than Belarus, but have received much less Western punishment due to their role as crucial oil and gas suppliers.[124] Another strand of critique has targeted the largely reactive nature of EU policy towards Belarus, as developments in the relationship have been largely driven by decisions made in Minsk rather than in Brussels and other capitals of EU member states. What has been missing from the EU’s policy, according to these analysts, has been a well-defined longer-term strategy with clearly articulated – and achievable – policy goals.[125]
The pragmatic or “Realpolitik” approach
As discussed in the previous chapter, the EU has not always pursued a purely normative approach. Following Russia’s invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, there was an element of Realpolitik in the EU’s receptiveness to Lukashenka’s calls for rapprochement, although – as Europe’s response to the 2010 election and the 2020 protests made clear – the democratisation agenda was never replaced by a truly pragmatic one.[126] Some analysts have argued, however, that the EU should pursue a pragmatic or Realpolitik approach towards Belarus, focused on strengthening Belarusian sovereignty and maximising Minsk’s strategic autonomy by providing it with a geopolitical alternative to Russia through pragmatic engagement.
In this view, the West should actively support Minsk’s efforts to build a multi-vector foreign policy and to engage in foreign policy hedging, since that is allegedly in the West’s own interests. One benefit of this approach would be that – unlike with the democratisation strategy – the EU and Lukashenka actually have a shared interest here, namely in limiting Moscow’s sway over Minsk.[127] Advocates of a pragmatic approach also tend to see Belarus’ seeming vassalage to Russia more as a product of the West’s attempt to isolate it than of some inherent political and strategic alignment between Moscow and Minsk.[128]
But advocates of a pragmatic approach also like to stress that such an approach is not necessarily incompatible with normative considerations. Some analysts have argued that engagement also increases EU leverage in Belarus and actually tends to create more, rather than less, space for civil society to operate in Belarus itself, as well as improvements in human rights and political freedoms.[129] Although these analysts generally agree that sanctions should be weakened or lifted and diplomatic relations with Minsk restored, relatively little attention is paid in this literature to the policy instruments that the EU – or the West more broadly – should employ in order to seek rapprochement with Belarus, as well as to the timing and sequencing of their deployment.[130]
Engagement with the Lukashenka regime has been mostly criticised for failing to bring about political liberalisation, even though democratisation is not a primary objective for most advocates of a pragmatic approach. From this perspective, attempts at rapprochement with Minsk for geopolitical reasons were a mistake, since the Lukashenka regime was never willing to seriously liberalise the political system.[131] Another key obstacle to re-engaging with the Lukashenka regime is that Belarus is now viewed as an extension of a Russian threat that needs to be contained, especially through economic sanctions.[132] Indeed, following the imposition of Western economic sanctions on Russia in 2014 and, more severely, since 2022, Belarus has helped Russia to evade sanctions by re-exporting imported Western goods to its eastern neighbour.[133] Lifting or easing sanctions on Belarus would thus also create more loopholes for Moscow to evade Western sanctions.
A further downside of a pragmatic policy is that there seem to be substantial limitations on what it can achieve, which most analysts seem to agree would be much less than a full geopolitical reorientation of Belarus. After all, Lukashenka – or an authoritarian successor of his – will have no incentive to replace Russia as Belarus’ main political partner with the EU. For that, the economic dependence of Belarus on Russia is simply too great, while the EU’s democracy promotion efforts are seen as an existential threat by the authoritarian regimes in Minsk and many other Eurasian capitals.[134] The objectives of a pragmatic policy are thus almost inherently modest.
The search for a middle ground
In recent years, some analysts like Ryhor Astapenia and Shraibman have been searching for a middle ground between the principled and pragmatic approaches. They recognise that the isolation of Belarus has driven Minsk into Moscow’s arms, but at the same time they do not want to give up on the democratisation agenda. They thus seek to pursue a policy that combines the democratisation agenda with a policy of engagement that weakens Russia’s influence in Belarus. Both Astapenia and Shraibman also criticise the passivity of the principled approach and argue that the West needs an active strategy for Belarus that is distinct from its Russia strategy.[135]
Astapenia and Shraibman argue in favour of restoring communication channels with the Lukashenka regime and turning sanctions into a more pragmatic, flexible tool with a roadmap for how Minsk could have them lifted in case it makes concessions, which (for Shraibman) include “the release of political prisoners, an end to the artificially created migrant crisis, and maximum distancing – as far as feasible – from Russia’s war against Ukraine.” Both also argue that sanctions should primarily aim to limit Belarus’ economic dependence on Russia, for instance by targeting Russian companies operating in Belarus or Belarusian industries, like oil refining, which are fully dependent on the importation of Russian raw materials. On the other hand, sanctions on sectors that are least dependent on Russian inputs and have the most promise to restore meaningful economic ties with the West should be prioritised when considering the lifting of sanctions in case Minsk makes the necessary concessions. At the same time, Astapenia and Shraibman want the West to keep on supporting Belarusian civil society, independent media, and the democratic opposition.[136]
An important implication of this search for a middle ground is that we should not see the choice between a normative or pragmatic approach as simply a binary one. The range of policy options that the EU – and the West more broadly – has regarding Belarus is probably best conceived of as a spectrum that runs from one ideal type (the normative approach) to the other one (pragmatic engagement). In between, there are various middle grounds. As the analysis of the policy implications of the scenarios in the next chapter will indicate, however, these middle grounds come with their own trade-offs.