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POLAND: COLD WAR IN POLITICS AND A TRADE BOOM
Kamil Klysinski Summary
When Alexander Lukashenko aggravated the domestic policy in December 2010, it caused a deep and formidable crisis in Minsk-Brussels relations. Relations between Belarus and Poland reached a point of dramatic tension and the latter turned into the major external enemy, and became an object of unfriendly activities and propaganda attacks. Being an immediate neighbor and presiding in the EU in the second half of 2011, Warsaw tried to convince Minsk to moderate its policy and re-establish a dialogue with Brussels. But Belarusian authorities absolutely reject Poland as a mediator and initiator of the EU's Eastern policy. Therefore, they purposefully boycotted the Eastern partnership summit in September and consistently oppose reducing tension in bilateral relations. At the same time, the terrible political climate became no hindrance to bilateral trade that reached the record-breaking USD 3.2 bln in 2011.
Trends:
• Poland became the main target of the state-owned media's propaganda attacks and unfriendly activities of the regime.
• The two countries found themselves facing a terrible crisis, forbidding any kind of cooperation or political contacts, except the bare minimum.
• The terrible political crisis did not hinder Polish-Belarusian trade, which reached a record USD 3.2 bln in 2011 and vividly demonstrated the potential of Polish-Belarusian relations.
Poland as external enemy of Belarus № 1
In early November 2010, foreign ministers of Poland and Germany Radoslaw Sikorski and Guido Westerwelle tried to persuade Alexander Lukashenko to hold democratic election in December in exchange for economic benefits from extended cooperation with the EU. It was another attempt of the so-called policy of conditionality, which meant that Warsaw and Berlin showed a greater interest in democratization of Belarus than other EU countries. It was also the reason why the both states, after the opposition demonstration was broken up on 19 December 2010, had to react promptly and decisively, i.e. proportionally to their previous engagement in political liberalization. Harsh criticism and threat of sanctions provoked the regime's aggressive reaction.
In January 2011, the printed organ of the Presidential Administration newspaper SB. Belarus Today published a number of long articles titled The backstage of a conspiracy1, claiming to be based on operative materials of the Belarusian secret services and proving that Germany and Poland had prepared and financed a revolution in Belarus aiming to overthrow Alexander Lukashenko. Both countries disclaimed these accusations and called for re-introduction of visa sanctions against the regime's representatives with Lukashenko at the head, which were lifted in autumn 2008. It should be noted that Poland had introduced its own list of persons banned from entry into its territory before such a decision was made at the EU forum. Later, the Belarusian authorities lessened accusations against Germany but retained sever criticism of Poland. In February, the Belarusian TV channel ONT broadcasted a program «Open Format», where the guests evaluated the policy of Polish authorities as non-constructive, hostile and far from the democratic standards promoted by Warsaw. This was just the beginning of anti-Polish propaganda aimed at discrediting the Polish authorities and their Eastern policy. As a result, Poland became the regime's enemy №1, which is understandable because any authoritarian system has a natural need for creating an external enemy to shift responsibility for political and economic problems and to consolidate society and the power camp.
In the 20-year history of Polish-Belarusian relations Warsaw has often performed this role in Minsk's policy. Therefore, it was an ideal object for another big propaganda campaign. As a result, relations between two countries were in a deep crisis, which paralyzed any kind of a wider political cooperation.
Together with the campaign in the media, the Belarusian authorities launched legal actions against the Karta Polaka, or the Pole's Card, a document confirming belonging to the Polish nation for individuals who cannot obtain dual citizenship in their own countries. The Card is issued, among others, to the citizens of Belarus of Polish origin and provides them with a number of discounts, including a fee-free visa. On proposal of the House of Representatives of the Belarusian Parliament the Constitutional Court analyzed the legality of the Act on the Pole's Card and resolved in the ordinance of 7 April 2011 that Polish consulates granted these documents illegally violating, among others, the UN's ordinances,
http://sb.by/post/111079/
Polish-Belarusian bilateral agreements and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Despite references to such solid legal acts, the ordinance was of somewhat ludicrous nature as evaluation of a legal act of an independent state by a judicial body of another state is not a conventional international practice. Besides, the content of the ordinance showed that it had been prepared hastily: a statement in the document indirectly indicates that the illegal Union of Poles in Belarus was recognized as a full-fledged non-governmental organization, which surely could not have been the aim of the Constitutional Court. In this light, the judges' decision seems to be a mere pretext for actions limiting the accessibility of the Karta Polaka to the citizens of Belarus.
Despite the propaganda, the Card seems to have caused alarm among the Belarusian authorities because they see it as a dangerous and effective lever of influencing a significant part of the society (according to the census 2009, 300,000 people of Polish origin live in Belarus). So, in late 2001 the Belarusian parliament made amendments to the law on civil service prohibiting civil servants to hold or obtain the Pole's Card under threat of dismissal.
But the fact is that no repressive activities, similar to those of winter 2010 in Ivianiec, were launched against the independent Union of Poles in Belarus headed by Anzelika Orechwo in 2011. Similarly, in July 2011 Andrey Pachobut was convicted to a 3-year sentence with a stay of execution for 2 years not because of his activities in the Union but for writing critical articles about the Belarusian regime in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza as its resident correspondent in Belarus.
Poland's presidency fiasco in relations with Lukashenko
One of the most difficult tasks of Polish presidency in the European Union in the second half of 2011 was Belarus-EU relations. Since the presidential elections in December both Minsk — Warsaw and Minsk-Brussels relations were halted and nothing indicated that they might be resumed. The regime's tough policy convinced the EU policy-makers to enlarge the list of individuals banned from entry into the EU and to introduce some economic sanctions, starting with three companies of Vladimir Peftiev, a businessman close to Lukashenko.
Since the very beginning of the crisis, Poland has been among countries calling for a stern position in relations with the regime,
which lessened Warsaw's appeal as a feasible negotiator in resuming a dialogue between Belarus and the EU. In late September, Foreign Minister of Bulgaria Nickolay Mladenov was invited to Minsk for behind-the-scenes negotiations on this issue, which proved that the Belarusian authorities would work around Poland in their contacts with the EU at any cost. Despite Mladenov's failure Minsk did not change its negative attitude to Poland's role during its EU presidency. Alexander Lukashenko decided not to send Foreign Minister Sergey Martynov to the Eastern partnership summit in late September in Warsaw and the Belarusian delegation was excluded from the sittings.
As a result, Polish diplomats did not stand a chance to exploit the summit and try resuming the dialogue. At the same time, the Belarusian president once again accused Poland of planning to annex Western Belarus and rejected Donald Tusk's preliminary modernization package for appr. USD 9 bln. Minsk was firm rejecting Poland's role in molding relations between Belarus and the EU. In these circumstances, at a press-conference in December 2011 Poland's ambassador to Belarus Leszek Szarepka had to admit that during Poland's presidency no significant improvements had been achieved in Belarus-EU relations. What is more, besides issuing offensive statements and ignoring Poland's role in the EU the Be-larusian authorities performed a number of unfriendly activities that impeded reducing tension in bilateral relations. For example, the Belarusian side blocked enactment of the agreement on local border traffic, signed as far back as early 2010.
As a result, Poland's support of the Belarusian opposition and civil society out of its Foreign Ministry's aid fund and other, nongovernmental sources, turned out to be the only realm of political cooperation between the states. But the positive cooperation atmosphere was marred by Ales Bialacki's arrest on the grounds of information handed over by the Polish Prosecutor's Office and the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice. An oversight with tragic consequences, this accident was negatively received by the Belarusian civil activists and generated a formidable suspicion toward the Polish authorities.
Best year for trade
Good trade figures have always been typical for Polish-Belarusian relations, despite tensions in the political sphere. The 2011 Minsk-
Warsaw crisis had no negative influence on the bilateral trade; on the contrary, the total turnover reached the record-breaking USD 3.2 bln. The figure of USD 2.4 bln in the Belarusian statistics is accounted for by a different calculation method.
Compared to 2010, it grew by 20%. Traditionally, the Belarusian export to Poland consisted of petroleum-based products, potash fertilizers, and wood. Belarus imported an extensive list of items ranging from vegetables and pork to furniture and metal products. It must be underlined that this significant growth occurred as a part of the general trade increase between Belarus and the EU,
Nevertheless, just like the rest of Europe, Poland made little investment into Belarus - only USD 15.8 mln.
Conclusion
By late 2010, after a long period of dialogue, Polish-Belarusian relations landed in a profound and deep political crisis. Due to diametrically opposed interests and conflicting values both sides are unable to find a common language and come to at least temporary understanding. Poland decisively rejected Minsk's clichn "accept us the way we are", which, besides other things, would mean accepting repressions against the opposition. On the other hand, Belarus consciously rejected Poland as a negotiator in relations with the EU and the key initiator and immediate implementer of the Eastern policy. In this situation, Minsk — Warsaw political contacts in 2011 could not cross the minimum conditioned by the immediate neighborhood, although the record-breaking level of bilateral trade hints at a mighty but uncultivated potential of the bilateral relations.
