Statement of the Steering Committee on the occasion of the Annual Assembly of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum on ensuring the rights of citizens and the threat of loss of sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus

Since the end of 2018, the author­i­ties of the Repub­lic of Belarus and the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion have been nego­ti­at­ing the deep­er inte­gra­tion which can jeop­ar­dize the sov­er­eign­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus and the respect for civ­il rights. The meet­ing of the pres­i­dents of Belarus and Rus­sia is sched­uled for 8 Decem­ber 2019. A set of new inte­gra­tion doc­u­ments is going to be signed in the meet­ing.

The process of the deep­er inte­gra­tion of Belarus and Rus­sia is a mat­ter of great con­cern to the civ­il soci­ety of Belarus and oth­er coun­tries due to the fol­low­ing rea­sons:

- There is a lack of trans­paren­cy and the access of the cit­i­zens to cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion. All nego­ti­a­tions on the deep­er inte­gra­tion are held in closed ses­sion, pub­lic access to the doc­u­ments is restrict­ed, the doc­u­ments are clas­si­fied as “for inter­nal use”.

- There is a lack of inclu­sive­ness and civ­il con­trol: no civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, local com­mu­ni­ties, pri­vate busi­ness own­ers, trade unions of Belarus are includ­ed in the process of nego­ti­a­tions and inte­gra­tion doc­u­ments prepa­ra­tion;

- The par­ties of the inter­gov­ern­men­tal nego­ti­a­tions of the deep­er inte­gra­tion are not equal, Belarus depends on Rus­sia.

The nego­ti­a­tions take place against the for­ma­tion of the new par­lia­ment of the Repub­lic of Belarus (The Nation­al Assem­bly) in Novem­ber 2019 result­ing in the elec­tions which were recog­nised as not con­form­ing to the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards for democ­ra­cy, free­dom and trans­paren­cy of the elec­toral process by the inter­na­tion­al mis­sions (ODIHR OSCE) and nation­al inde­pen­dent mis­sions (“Human Rights Defend­ers for Free Elec­tions”). There are con­sid­er­able restric­tions on the right to peace­ful assem­bly, free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion and free­dom of expres­sion, includ­ing the Inter­net. The prac­tice of polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed admin­is­tra­tive arrests and crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings with the pur­pose to pur­sue civ­il activists still takes place in Belarus.

We, del­e­gates and par­tic­i­pants of the East­ern Part­ner­ship Civ­il Soci­ety Forum:

• call upon the author­i­ties of Belarus to adopt changes in the Belaru­sian elec­toral leg­is­la­tion which were rec­om­mend­ed by ODIHR OSCE and belaru­sian human rights organ­i­sa­tions, on peace­ful assem­bly tak­ing into account the OSCE Guide­lines in the free­dom of peace­ful assem­bly and also in the reg­is­tra­tion of pub­lic asso­ci­a­tions apply­ing the reg­is­tra­tion prin­ci­ple, reverse admin­is­tra­tive lia­bil­i­ty for the activ­i­ties of unreg­is­tered pub­lic asso­ci­a­tions, stop the pres­sure on free­lance jour­nal­ists and inde­pen­dent media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed admin­is­tra­tive and crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings of social activists, reha­bil­i­tate for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­ers;
• call upon the author­i­ties of Rus­sia and Belarus to ensure trans­paren­cy and inclu­sive­ness of the deep­er inte­gra­tion nego­ti­a­tions process and take into account the views of the Russ­ian and Belaru­sian cit­i­zens on this issue.

• point out that the ongo­ing process of the deep­er inte­gra­tion with Rus­sia bears the mark of forc­ing Belarus to relin­quish sov­er­eign­ty and relies on the tools of eco­nom­ic black­mail by Rus­sia;
• call upon the Euro­pean Union rep­re­sen­ta­tives and indi­vid­ual mem­ber states of the EU to con­sid­er that due to the lack of inclu­sive­ness and trans­paren­cy in the process of deep­er inte­gra­tion and also due to the lack of demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion mech­a­nisms and respect for human rights in Belarus, the deci­sions of the author­i­ties do not reflect the opin­ion of civ­il soci­ety and the peo­ple of Belarus on the inte­gra­tion with Rus­sia;
• empha­size that under the cur­rent cir­cum­stances, no inte­gra­tion agree­ments should be recog­nised as legit­i­mate by the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.
• We call upon the Euro­pean Union gov­ern­ment, Gov­ern­ments and civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions of the coun­tries of the East­ern part­ner­ship to con­tribute to the rein­force­ment of the issue of sov­er­eign­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus, respect for human rights in Belarus, the Belaru­sian elec­tion pro­ce­dures in accor­dance with the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards on the agen­da of EU-Belarus Coor­di­na­tion Group and Human Rights Dia­logue, through “EU-RUSSIA”, in mul­ti­lat­er­al meet­ings in terms of the East­ern Part­ner­ship and in bilat­er­al nego­ti­a­tions.