Since 2018, Russia has ratcheted up the pressure on Belarus demanding a deeper integration into the Russian-Belarusian Union State in return for maintaining some of the lucrative economic and financial subsidies for Belarus. A full and comprehensive realization of the Union State would put an end to Belarusian independence and would have serious consequences for the strategic situation in Central and Eastern Europe. Dragging his feet, Alexander Lukashenko has managed to resist so far. While he has not called the union treaty into question, he nonetheless insists on Belarus sovereignty.
In view of the ongoing pressure being exerted by Russia, it is high time to review EU’s policy vis-à-vis Belarus and ask what the EU can realistically offer Belarus beyond what it is already doing now without undermining its own credibility.
These questions are raised and addressed by the policy paper authored by John Lough for the Center for Liberal Modernity.
Registration and light lunch from 12:30 – Meeting from 13.15 to 14.30
The Center for Liberal Modernity (LibMod) is a Berlin-based bipartisan think-tank devoted to democracy, individual liberty and freedom. The Center was founded in 2017 by Marieluise Beck, a former Green Party politician of foreign affairs with a focus on Eastern and South-East Europe, and Ralf Fücks, who served as president of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.
