This is the common opinion reached by representatives of various Belarusan intellectual movements and environments during the meeting** in Mariaspring near Göttingen*** (Germany) in February 2010.

Summary 

* The document is based on proposals developed by Humanitarian Technologies Agency (Minsk) and International Consortium EUROBELARUS and adopted by Belarusian participants of CSF in Brussels via e-mail consultations.

Problem Zone

Civil Society Forum in Brussels on November 16-17, 2009 has become important which provides involving CSOs in the Eastern Partnership initiative. CSOs have succeeded to raise and solve at the Forum some key questions related to forming regular CSF bodies, CSF mission and role in EaP. As a result of the Forum the initiative group has been formed from SCO representatives that share idea of active involvement of Civil Society at political decision-making level. It could be foreseen that the next phase of holding and developing initiative and potential of CSF will require changes in focus of attention from procedure and self-organization issues to solving content objectives of thematic platforms.

Summary: The evolvement and development of the Eastern Partnership Initiative was the result of delicate balance of political forces that set the frameworks of this initiative: the openness and flexibility of the cooperation mechanisms and balance between pragmatism and values while constructing these mechanisms. The following political period for the programme will be determined by three issues: by the decision on the EU visa ban against Belarusian officials, by a complex of projects, to be implemented within the platforms set up within the Eastern Partnership Programme, by shaping the mechanism for civil society participation in the EU relations with Belarus, which will be identified at the Civil Society Forum on 16-17 November. The current situation and the position of the major players make actions of the Belarusian civil society one of the most important factors of the configuration of the political space of European cooperation. It requires consolidation of forces for shaping and promoting the agenda and proposals for the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership, which will be held 16-17 November 2009. Framework task for identifying items for agenda is that the first Civil Society Forum should provide the procedural and organizational framework for the inclusion of the civil society into cooperation between the partner countries and the EU.

Key words: Eastern Partnership, civil society, Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership, agenda.

The subject of my research concerns apart from the Public Advisory Council under the auspices of the Presidential Administration also other similar councils: on the country's image, on the media and perhaps to a lesser extent it applies to the newly created Council on Morality.

Less than three month is left before the first meeting of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (the provisional date was selected as mid-November 2009). During this short period of time it is necessary to select participants of the Forum and to resolve the outstanding issues of institutional interaction between the structures of the Forum of the Eastern Partnership and the formal structures of the EU. Many acute problems in one way or another were resolved in the Concept paper of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership[1], which outlined the key objectives and activities of the Forum, set a framework for engagement for the Forum with the platforms and committees of the Eastern Partnership, pre-defined structure of the Forum. Despite of the progressive nature of the set mechanisms in the Concept Paper for the civil society of the Eastern Partnership participating states, there is still a number of unresolved or insufficiently transparent moments. Such as, above all, the issue related to the selection of participants of the Forum. The delicacy and complexity of these issues does not allow for hoping that an optimal solution will be found for all, however a satisfactory solution could still be found.

Recent developments

1. How can the Civil Society Forum help to achieve the purposes of the Eastern partnership?

The state systems of four of the six countries-participants of the Eastern Partnership are far from the European standards. These countries are ruled by authoritarian regimes. Their citizens’ participation in the government of their states is essentially complicated. Some groups of the population are exposed to discrimination; the political opposition is deprived of possibilities to influence the way state decisions are passed. It leads to the situation when interests of a significant part of society in these countries are not taken into account by the state policy. The same is true about these four countries’ politics towards the European Union and European integration. These countries’ governments are more interested in normalization of economic relations with the European Union than in the political and institutional integration. Unlike the governments, civil society structures are more interested in the solution of political and institutional questions, thus approaching the European standards. Expressing interests of the excluded layers of society, groups of the population, and various kinds of minorities, the Civil Society Forum is to become a tool and mechanism of a complex implementation of the purposes of the Eastern Partnership and a mechanism of public control over the course of rapprochement and cooperation within the framework of all basic structures of the Eastern partnership. 

The Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies and the Brussels-based Office for Democratic Belarus present their new policy proposal ‘What Eastern Partnership Should Bring to Belarus’. This proposal is prepared in line with the request for opinions and proposals issued by the European Commission to civil society organizations with regard to the role of Civil Society Forum and the overall role of civil society in shaping the Eastern Partnership.