BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Belarus Election 2006

DATE:

04.11.2005 - 17:51 CET

EU to fire warning shot on Belarus elections

By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday (7 November) are set to fire a shot across the bows to Belarus on human rights ahead of the July 2006 presidential vote.

The statement, preliminarily agreed by EU ambassadors on Thursday, calls on Minsk to conduct the elections fairly and under proper international observation, as well as to stop harassing independent media and NGOs, such as the Polish Union in Belarus.

The text says the EU is "ready to take further appropriate restrictive measures versus responsible individuals" if the conditions are not met.

The words are a thinly veiled reference to the possible extension of a visa ban on six Minsk politicans, imposed in November 2004 due to alleged abuses surrounding a referendum on the length of president Alexander Lukashenko's mandate.

Ministers will also ask the European Commission to channel more funds into flexible budgetary instruments, such the European Initiative for Human Rights and Democracy, rather than more formal strcutures, such as TACIS, where EU spending ideas have to be signed off by the Belarusian authorities.

Belarus tops foreign affairs agenda

Ministers plan to debate the Belarus conclusions for one hour on Monday, the first time since November 2004 that the issue has come so high on the European agenda, despite the efforts of MEPs who issued five resolutions on the subject since enlargement.

The ministers' main objective is that observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have full access to the election campaign in the run-up to June 2006, as well as the vote itself.

"We have to make sure the opposition candidates are allowed to conduct some kind of campaign," a Polish diplomat said.

The EU's specific reference to the Polish Union in Belarus (ZPB) is also a break from past etiquette, which tends to speak of "civil society" en masse rather than singling out organisations.

ZPB, which represents 400,000 ethnic Poles living mainly in the east of Belarus, is widely seen as the last major independent NGO left in the country.

"The situation there has not improved," the commission's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Emma Udwin, said.

The Polish diplomat added "things are even worse there than we got used to [under communism]."

Meller debut

The new Polish foreign minister, Stefan Meller, will make his debut at Monday's meeting, bringing his experience as Polish ambassador to Russia for the past four years to the Belarus debate.

Poland and Lithuania, which share a direct border with Belarus, have been the strongest proponents of further EU action against the country's regime.

But Ms Udwin said the issue has also become "a centre of interest" for most member states in recent months.

Source:

http://euobserver.com/9/20256