The National Platform is ready to become the engine of the Dialogue on Modernization

Representatives of the Belarusan National Platform for the EaP CSF are ready to become the customers, inspectors and performers of the expert proposals created under the Dialogue on Modernization.

The announcement was made during a round table, "The program of development of the European Dialogue on Modernization with Belarus", which took place yesterday at the office of the EU Delegation in Minsk.

The Head of EU Delegation to Belarus Ambassador Maira Mora who was opening the event, considered "pretty gloomy" the current picture of the relationship between the EU and Belarus, but also noted in her speech that "from the very launch of the Dialogue on Modernization, the European Union has announced that cooperation with the civil society would be investment in future relations with Belarus". According to the EU representative, "the first stage of the Dialogue on Modernization has already stimulated emergence of good and interesting ideas as to improve the situation in Belarus".

The head of the Centre for European Transformation Andrei Yahorau told about the intermediate results of the Dialogue on Modernization, the existing problems and the Dialogue’s future prospects. Among the priority areas for the development of the Dialogue, he identified several separate clusters, dedicated to the political component of the Dialogue on Modernization, the issues of modernization of the judicial system and the law enforcement, as well as to economic and social reforms.

Special attention by Andrei Yahorau was given to the proposals in some directions for the further Dialogue on Modernization development. According to the expert, "the absence of a full communication with the political groups interested in reforms on modernization, and the imbalance of the expert groups involved in the Dialogue do not contribute to its development".

The round table participants mostly agreed with Andrei Yahorau, who noted that today there were simply no civil society actors in Belarus, ready to take responsibility for implementing the findings and conclusions on which the work has been in progress under the Dialogue on Modernization, "There are no people ready to become the engines for promoting ideas generated by the Dialogue expert groups".

Uladzimir Matskevich, the chairperson of the Coordination Committee of the National Platform of the EaP Civil Society Forum, only partly agreed with this conclusion. Noting a number of problems (unilaterality of the Dialogue, inequality of the conversation participants, unpracticality of the submitted proposals, low qualification of some Dialogue’s experts and participants), the leader of the Belarusan civil society stated that "it is exactly the National Platform that should be the customer and the consumer of expert proposals under the Dialogue, which may be taken to implementation". At the same time, Uladzimir Matskevich stressed that "there is no National Platform’s monopolization of the process at all. Other social and political actors can also pretend and become the customers, inspectors and performers of the expert proposals created under the European Dialogue on Modernization with Belarus”.

Uladzimir Matskevich was rather harsh in his speech, "We see that very few people understand the meaning and the purpose of the Dialogue on Modernization, there is loss of interest in the Dialogue, and a negative image of the conversation participants is being formed. The gap is widening between the active part of the civil society and its committed part, both involved in the process of the Dialogue".

Some experts and analysts, including those involved in the Dialogue, do not cease to lament the fact that they do not know who will be the consumer and the performer of the recommendations and the reform projects that have already been developed or are being formed in the Dialogue process. A very concrete answer was formulated by Uladzimir Matskevich, so as "Right now or in the near future, it is necessary to recognize the National Platform as the customer and the acceptor of the expert and analytical findings of all the working groups of the Dialogue on Modernization. Accordingly, we will be able to implement these findings, without demanding for the National Platform to be a monopolist in terms of the order and acceptance of these findings. Exactly the same claim may be asserted by any other authorized person".

Summing up the meeting, the facilitator of the round table, chairman of the International Consortium EuroBelarus Ulad Vialichka invited all the event participants to concentrate their efforts in the near future on the actions that are to be taken to promote the Dialogue on Modernization with Belarus. "This related to the expert groups under the Dialogue on Modernization, and to certain areas within the National Platform. Discussing the problems is our minimum program. But we need to make decisions, and there are heaps of work in this respect", stressed Ulad Vialichka. This position was also supported by Andrei Yahorau who concluded, "We should be tied to the real problems solving, rather than dreaming on a variety of topics".