German experts: If Sannikov implements reforms, in 6-8 years Belarus will join EU

A discussion with participation of a potential candidate for presidency in Belarus Andrei Sannikov has taken place.

As informed by Deutsche Welle, the leader of “European Belarus” civil campaign Andrei Sannikov spoke about European prospects of his country, its economy modernization, about investigation of a journalist Aleh Byabenin’s death. Some German experts believe that if reforms offered by Sannikov would be successfully implemented, in 6-8 years Belarus would be able to knock on the door of the European Union.

Modernization is necessary

Presidential aspirants, who visited Berlin before, started their speeches with presentation of their election agenda. Andrei Sannikov was the first who started with presenting his forecast of Belarus’ development after Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s tenure. As said by Sannikov, “the transition period would be not easy, but it would be an onward progress.”

Sannikov emphasized the exceptional importance of the economic factor in the future development of Belarus. According to the leader of “European Belarus”, economy of the country is in a catastrophic state, and needs urgent reforming. “Now the country is a welfare recipient, due to the fault of Lukashenka it needs credits. And this money is thrown to the wind. According to estimations of experts, 70% of credits are spent on wages of workers and salaries of state employees, on some thoughtless mindless crazy projects,” Sannikov noted.

New rules of the game

The experts who were taking part in he discussion, agreed that the economy of Belarus needs reforming, but underlined importance of understanding the increasing role of Europe, not the US, as it were before. Joеrg Forbrig, the leading expert of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (Berlin), noted that with the new US administration headed by Barack Obama, Washington lost it interest to the European politics considerably.

“This tendency concerns the neighbouring countries of the EU as well. I think that in the future the US will play an increasingly lesser role in European affairs, and it is clear for the democratic opposition in Belarus as well,” Forbrig underlined.

In case of Andrei Sannikov’s victory in the election, he plans to establish understandable rules of the game in the political space of Belarus. He plans to start with returning the principle of separation of powers. According to Sannikov, Lukashenka, who rules monocratically, in fact had deprived the parliament its powers and liquidated independence of the judicial system.

Joеrg Forbrig believes that restructuring of state institutions, primarily the parliament and the legal system, is an important aspect, but one should not overlook the economic issues. “For reaching the standards of the EU, privatization should be carried out promptly, and make the economy of Belarus less dependant on the raw material base,” the expert thinks.

To go to Europe, not forgetting Russia

Many participants of the discussion were interested how the candidate, who orients himself for Europe, plans to build relations with Russia. Sannikov explained that speaking about an intention to integrate Belarus into the European Union, alongside with that he assigns high priority to the strategic partnership with Russia.

An expert of a non-governmental organization European Exchange (Europäischer Austausch) Stefanie Schiffer expressed an opinion that the EU and Russia should cooperate in resolving the Belarusian question. “Democratization of Belarus with the help of Russia is out of the question. However joint efforts of the OSCE and CIS observers at the elections are a clever solution, which allows to exchange information immediately,” she said.

Investigation of Byabenin’s case

Participants of the discussion said it is especially important that the OSCE experts would start investigation of the details of death of Aleh Byabenin, a founder of the Charter’97 oppositional website. However, there were also critical comments. For instance, Andrei Sannikov fears that the authorities would manipulate the work and conclusions of the experts. “We do not know what documents had been given to them. It is not excluded that the OSCE experts had not received the files of the criminal case, but their translation only. These are different things,” Sannikov warns.

His worries are shared by Stefanie Schiffer, who calls upon Minsk to make possible an independent work of the OSCE experts. “The OSCE commission is an important signal, but what the experts would be able to do, to a large extent is to depend on readiness of Belarusian authorities to give all the necessary information,” she stated.