Europe’s Last Dictator Steps Into the Unknown

During last weekend’s parliamentary elections in Belarus — a country of just under ten million people that Swedish economist Anders Aslund once described as a “Soviet theme park” — two opposition politicians were elected to the lower house for the first time in more than a decade. This minuscule opposition gain may appear insignificant, but it points to deeper, though incremental, changes.

Three reasons why Belarus is on investors’ radar

After years of economic crisis and anaemic growth, Belarus is becoming an attractive destination to foreign investors.

Belarus has been receiving an increased attention from investors of late. Having weathered several heavy economic crises is in the mid-1990s, an ongoing process of implementing structural economic reforms has seen it slowly shirk its reputation as a Soviet-era authoritarian regime with centralised economic planning. While many reforms in the field of economic liberalisation still need to be implemented, the country is actively seeking to improve its international standing and attract foreign investment.

The slow dance between Minsk and Brussels

The crisis in Ukraine is making Belarus more dependent on Russia. But it has also made the Belarusian leadership keener to balance its close ties to Moscow with a warmer relationship with Brussels.



Most Europeans think little about Belarus, a country of ten million people that nestles between Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. It has been politically stable for a long time: Alexander Lukashenko was first elected to the presidency in 1994, and is virtually certain to win the next presidential election, in November. But even though the authoritarian political system seems immutable, the economy and the foreign policy may be less so. The EU needs to wake up to the geopolitical opportunities that could arise in Belarus.

Can the EU help Belarus to guard its independence?

Belarus is the forgotten member of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The EU has negotiated ‘action plans’ with the other five members – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. These involve the EU promising benefits in return for commitments to reform. And of those five, all but Armenia and Azerbaijan have signed or will sign association agreements with the EU. Belarus has been excluded because of its human rights record. However, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, both Minsk and Brussels are thinking seriously about a closer relationship.




Events in Ukraine have worried the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s president since 1994. His government, of course, dislikes popular revolutions of the sort that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych in Kyiv. But it also opposes the dismembering of a country like Ukraine. On a recent visit to Belarus, I noticed that officials became visibly nervous when asked about the new ‘Putin doctrine’ – the assertion of Russia’s right to intervene in neighbouring states to protect the interests of Russians or Russian-speakers (ethnic Russians make up 8 per cent of the population of Belarus; everyone speaks Russian but 15-20 per cent also speak Belarusian regularly).