France, becoming the EU Presidency for the 12^th time, inherited quite a few problems. The French announced clearly their priority areas: immigration, security, energy and environmental protection and agriculture. The co-called “Belarusian issue” was never taken closely by Paris, though not disregarded. It seems that nothing would change in the course of the following half a year.

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the EU-Presidency intended to elaborate common agricultural and immigration policy, fight the climate change and to secure the energy supplies, as well as to improve the military potential of the united Europe.

However the French officials admitted themselves that all these priorities would become secondary issues. The major point of concern of the EU-Presidency would be the “Treaty for Reforms” or the Lisbon Treaty. After its ratification by the 19 national parliaments, the positive dynamics was breached by the Irish: ‘thank you, no’, where the ratification had to be made via national referendum. Following the referendum, the Polish President Lech Kaczynski refused to sign the Lisbon Treaty, earlier adopted by the Polish Seim, saying that after the Irish vote it didn’t make any sense, due to the fact there was no agreement by all 27 EU Member States.

Apart from this issue, France has other serious interests: on 11 July the French President will visit Dublin to persuade the Irish government to hold another referendum and already on the 13^th July Sarkozy will launch the Mediterranean Union Project, which is supposed to unite the countries, having the access to the Mediterranean Sea, in particular, Israel and its Arabic neighbours, in order to strengthen the economic cooperation between them.

In the view of the Mediterranean interests of the French Presidency, a project, which is the major point of interest for Belarus might get lost. Poland and Sweden proposed the Eastern Partnership project, a forum for regional cooperation between the EU countries and its six neighbouring states: Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaidjian, Armenia and also Belarus at the expert level.

The authors of the project believe that its implementation would bring to the abolishment of visa regime of the EU with the listed above countries, as well as to the creation of a free trade zone for goods and services. The project is also aiming at shifting the focus of the external policy towards the post-Soviet neighbours of the European Union.

In June the project was supported by the Council of the European Union, a forum of leaders of the EU Member States.

A Belarusian political analyst, Andrey Fedorov, points out that, on principle, France is not very interested in solving the ‘Belarusian issue’, while our neighbours, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany traditionally take the Belarusian issue closer. “Indeed, the European Union Presidency is only the first among the equal however depending on its perceptions the priority of the issues on the agenda in Brussels will be decided”, reminded Mr. Fedorov. The political analyst also pointed out to the number of internal European issues, inherited by France.

The Head of the NGO “Office for Democratic Belarus” ( Brussels), Olga Stuzhinskaya, agrees with Mr. Fedorov. She says that the EU interest towards Belarus, as well as to its Eastern neighbours, will be rather restricted in the following half a year.

However she pointed out that on one hand, there is an “improved understanding of the Belarusian issue” in France. One should not forget about the meeting of Sarkozy with the Leader of the Movement “For Freedom”, Aleksandr Milinkevich. Moreover, four French NGOs initiated the process of collection of signatures for reduction of the Schengen visa fees for Belarusians and relevant queries were submitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, Bernard Couchner, by several French Deputies. “This is a good start”, says Olga Stuzhinskaya.

On the other hand, the Head of the “Office for Democratic Belarus” reminded that Belarusians, i.e. the government, political parties and civil society, should also influence the place of the “Belarusian issue” on the agenda. Thus, she stressed that the Belarusian Embassy in Paris was not active enough.

Mrs. Stuzhinskaya has better hopes for the 2009 EU Presidents: the Czech Republic and Sweden. The Czechs traditionally follow the events in Belarus and support the civil society, while the Swedes could bring forward their project of the “Eastern Partnership” to the full extent.

The Belarusian authorities as well mentioned the spring of 2009 as a starting point for the partnership between Brussels and its Eastern neighbours. The Press Secretary of the Belarusian MFA, Andrey Popov, pointed out that before then the concrete proposals related to the project should be presented by the European Commission.

From their side, the Belarusian authorities stated several times that Belarus was interested in improving relations with the European Union regardless of the country, presiding in the EU.

Marina Rakhley