The V4 NGOs have a long tradition of co-operation with Belarusian organisations. This is particularly true of Poland, yet NGOs from the Czech Republic and Slovakia also started to promote joint activities with their Belarusian partners prior to their integration into the EU, usually with the financial assistance of foreign donors.
A relatively recent phenomenon is financial assistance from the side of the V4 govern-ments for the promotion of democratic activities. This assistance also takes the EU into new territory, previously explored only by Denmark, Sweden and partially Germany.
The distinctive features of the V4 countries’ “democracy promotion” programmes can be identified in their interest in democratising Belarus and bringing it closer to the EU, in the inclusion in the foreign policy agenda of the new EU member states of a determination to increase the EU’s involvement in the post-Soviet region. These activities of the V4 countries represent new ground for the EU as a whole.
The V4 countries, however, differ significantly in the level of priority they give to the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy and to democracy assistance - and this is reflected in the degree of their involvement in supporting Belarusian NGOs (for instance, with the recent exception of ICDT, the absence of Hungarian partner organisations from supporting the non-governmental sector in Belarus, whereas for the other V4 countries and Lithuania, Be-larus ranks as one of the priority post-Soviet countries in terms of democracy assistance).
Likewise, the motivation of the individual V4 member states in providing democracy ass-istance to Belarus is different. On the one hand, for Poland, Belarus is a neighbouring country. Poland’s “Eastern” policy, especially towards Ukraine and Belarus, was con-ceptualised even before 1989 by Jerzy Giedroyc and Juliusz Mieroszewski in terms of the support for their independence in order to guarantee Polish security. On the other hand, for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the democracy assistance provided to Belarus means above all a moral duty to offer help to people suffering under an undemocratic regime, while also signalling their new identity as recognised, consolidated democracies - and new members of the EU. Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland consider Belarus to be a potential future participant in the process of Euro-Atlantic integration.
The reason for the Hungarian “absence” from the democracy assistance provided to Be-larus lies in the fact that the priorities of Hungarian foreign policy in terms of democracy assistance have been focused on the region of the Western Balkans, above all Serbia, and on the neighbouring states, particularly on minority issues or on regions inhabited by Hungarian minorities. More recently, signs of greater interest have become evident. In the beginning of 2008, Hungary decided to open its embassy in Minsk, and to donate
€ 50,000 to EHU.
are not accompanied by declarations or events focused on Belarus, despite its proximity as the EU’s immediate neighbour.
Within the EU, the degree of attention to Belarus varies significantly among EU members.
There has been a visible increase in the EU’s interest towards Belarus since the EU en-largement in 2004 and the Belarus presidential elections of 2006. The opening of the Delegation of the European Commission to Belarus marked a significant step, but on the other hand as of 2007 only 11 EU countries had embassies in Belarus. (In 2008, Hungary announced the opening of its embassy in Minsk.)
Individual EU member states also provide a different level of assistance to Belarus. Coun-tries such as Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg and Portugal have not provided any assistance to Belarus. Other countries, such as Austria, Greece (in the period 1997-2002), Ireland and Italy, provide mainly humanitarian aid to Belarus, while France is focused on the support of activities in the areas of cultural, education, university, scientific and technical co-operation.
On the other hand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, the V4 countries, as well as the Baltic and Scandinavian states, are actively involved in democracy assistance towards Belarus. The Scandinavian states support EHU, and the UK provides democracy assistance to Belarus directly through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The largest international donor in Belarus is Germany, although much of its support for NGOs acting in Belarus does not concentrate on democracy assistance. Particularly signif-icant is the contribution of Denmark and Sweden. Both countries used to act through their governmental programmes and agencies. Denmark provides support for the strengthening of civil society and independent media in the framework of the Danish Neighbourhood Programme, and in 2006 the Danish MFA financed a project focused on the promotion of free and fair elections. The project, financed by the Danish government, used to be implemented by NGOs, such as International Media Support or SILBA. The latter project was implemented by SILBA in co-operation with the Social Democratic youth of Denmark.
Denmark provides democracy assistance through its civil society programme as well. Swe-den provides democracy assistance programmes via the governmental agency SIDA.
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee and Human Rights House Foundation are present in Belarus, and the Netherlands supports Belarusian NGOs through a small grant scheme in the framework of the Matra KAP programme run by the embassy in Warsaw. Among the Baltic states, Lithuania provides the most active contribution to democracy assistance in Belarus. Its capital, Vilnius, is host to a number of Belarusian NGOs whose registra-tion was withdrawn in Belarus, and it hosts both EHU and Human Rights House. Belarus belongs to the top priorities of Lithuanian official development assistance (attracting 23%
of total funds), second only to Afghanistan (47%)
largest non-state grantor based in the V4 countries, but its programmes for Belarus are financed by other sponsors, thus the Batory Foundation is in effect re-granting the funds.
Due to the relatively small amount of financing from the state budget, as well as the long traditions and good reputation of V4 NGOs in Belarus, their projects are very often fin-anced or co-finfin-anced by foreign donors. The most active in co-operation with V4 NGOs are donors from the US, namely the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). The projects of some Visegrad-based NGOs are financed by European donors, such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the Norwegian Human Rights House Foundation, and Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty.
Other donors supporting democracy assistance projects implemented by V4 NGOs in-clude the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the European Commission, but their visibility is lower than in the case of the American donors. As a result, those NGOs from V4 countries focused on democracy assistance in Belarus sometimes attract criticism within Belarus that they represent US interests.
The co-ordination of policies towards Belarus at the Visegrad Group level remains at an early stage of development. The V4 countries have to date developed democracy assist-ance programmes principally at the national level. The first major joint activity was the participation of representatives of Belarusian NGOs at the 15th meeting of V4 culture min-isters in Cracow (3-5 September 2006), which proclaimed a more active participation of Belarusian partners at events financed by the International Visegrad Fund. The promotion of joint activities towards Belarus was also the objective of the Slovak presidency of the V4 (July 2006 - June 2007). Joint multilateral activities of the Visegrad Group towards Belarus are taking shape in the case of the International Visegrad Fund’s scholarship programme (In-Coming Scholarships): in the academic year 2007/2008, scholarships were granted to 12 Belarusian students to study in one of the V4 countries (three in the Czech Republic, three in Hungary, two in Poland, and four in Slovakia).
On the national level, the scholarship policy for Belarusian students is different. To a large extent, it is developed in Poland within the framework of the dedicated Konstanty Kalinowski Scholarship Programme, directly targeting Belarusian students. Several schol-arship programmes targeted at students from Belarus were implemented in the Czech Republic after the presidential elections of 2006. In the case of Slovakia, students from Belarus are eligible to apply for the National Scholarship programme under the same rules as the citizens of EU member states and other countries participating in the Bologna process.
Even though the NGOs from V4 countries have well-established partner contacts with other V4 NGOs, these contacts are seldom transformed into direct co-operation in imple-menting joint projects for Belarus. One of the exceptions is the Belarus Public Policy Fund The different motivations for providing democracy assistance to Belarus, combined with
different cultural traditions and historical experiences, play a part in determining the content of activities supported by the V4 countries. Thus, according to the Polish MFA, the priorities include “dissemination of objective information about the present day and his-tory and Belarusian cultural identity, especially in the Belarusian language”. On the other hand, issues of identity do not play an important role in the donors’ policy of either the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Whereas the Czech MFA is predominantly focused on issues of human rights and - since 2006 - support for Belarusian students, Slovak NGOs and the Slovak MFA have been actively involved mainly in third-sector capacity-building projects, particularly in the training of NGO activists and in the development of an independent analytical community in the country. Nevertheless, in recent years partner organisations from the Czech Republic and Slovakia have realised the need for support for cultural projects in today’s Belarus as well.
Poland’s long-standing experience and potential for co-operation with Belarus have nat-urally affected the extent of co-operation with Belarusian partners. Polish NGOs are more actively involved in co-operation with Belarusian partners based outside the capital city, Minsk, than their Slovak and Czech counterparts.
The institutional framework of democracy assistance policy provided by the individual V4 governments is different as well. In Slovakia and in Poland, the official democracy assist-ance policy is considered to be a part of ODA. In Poland, NGO projects in Belarus are selected by officials from the territorial unit of the MFA (responsible for Eastern Europe) and the Development Co-operation unit, overseeing the technical conditions of the bids.
In the Czech Republic, the Transition Promotion programme concept was adopted in April 2005 as the official strategy of Czech democracy assistance. It is managed by the Transi-tion PromoTransi-tion unit, an autonomous unit of the MFA with its own budget. In 2008, the unit merged with the Department of Human Rights into the new Human Rights and Transition Policy department (HRTP).
Visegrad democracy assistance projects for Belarus are usually implemented by V4 NGOs. In Slovakia, they have been performed exclusively by NGOs, whereas in the Czech Republic and in Poland the state institutions are directly involved in certain projects.
For example, the Czech MFA published an unofficial translation into Belarusian of the resolution in 2005 of the UN Human Rights Council and the report of the Special Rap-porteur, Adrian Severin. The Polish government provides funding for Polish government media initiatives, which currently take up a higher share of the budget than NGO projects.
Warsaw is actively involved in support for “Radio Racyja” and the “Belsat” TV channel for Belarus. The Polish government was also an initiator of the Konstanty Kalinowski Scholar-ship Programme.
The funding for the activities of V4 NGOs comes from either national governments or foreign donors, both public and private. The Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland is the
Part II Visegrad Four Democracy Assistance Policies in Target Countries Belarus: Next Generation Democracy - Marian Kowalski The overall impact of the V4 countries’ democracy assistance in Belarus is considerable, mainly in terms of the change of the perception of the “Belarusian issue” in the EU. The EU accession of some post-communist countries in 2004 contributed to substantial changes in the EU policy towards Belarus.
The interest of EU institutions in Belarus has increased, although the presence of the EU in Belarus is still not very visible. The “non-paper”, entitled “What the European Union could bring to Belarus”, published in November 2006, describing the benefits on offer to the country upon fulfilment of improvements in the field of human rights, remained largely unnoticed, as is the EU presence as a donor for Belarusian civil society. The European Commission is often criticised for a high degree of bureaucracy and an unwillingness to support projects that could become the subject of political confrontation with the Belaru-sian government.
In spite of the relatively small amounts of funds that comprise V4 financial aid, Belarusian partners appreciate the co-operation with V4 partners - both NGOs and governments - as they can understand the current situation in Belarus, and their democratisation experience is partially applicable in Belarus.
In many cases, the joint project implementation has emerged from the result of long-term of-ficial or informal contacts between Belarusian NGOs and their V4 partner organisations, often having worked together on joint projects financed by donors from third countries.
The majority of the Belarusian partners find the character of co-operation with the V4 countries positive and a relationship based on equal partnership.
From a technical point of view, the most negative examples of V4 donor policies, such as the requirements to interact with state authorities or to have an official bank account, have been abandoned. For security reasons, it is often impossible to meet the requirement of off-icial accounting documents and invoices for some items (such as the purchase of printing paper or colour printing, etc). The requirement to keep project documentation for a period of three years also poses a security risk for NGOs, and jeopardises the safety of project participants under the current conditions. The lack of donors’ understanding of security issues is the main concern expressed by representatives of Belarusian NGOs.
As for the donors’ requirements for project contents, objections are raised mainly to the donors from the US and to European donors who implement projects financed from the US; for example, there was a split in the NGO community prior to the 2001 presidential elections as a result of the donors’ policies and conflicts between the donor structures.
Similar objections were raised to the donors’ requirement that vertical opposition struc-tures should be formed.
If there is a trend characterising the democracy assistance projects provided by V4 NGOs, it is their internationalisation. This is the case of TV Belsat that was initially launched as a programme of the Pontis Foundation in Slovakia, whose activities were co-financed by the
Transition Promotion unit of the Czech MFA. Another example is the co-operation between People in Need (PIN), which is focused on supporting local activists, and Poland’s East European Democracy Center. Both organisations regularly arrange visits of Belarusian opposition activists to Poland and the Czech Republic.
There are several reasons why the V4 should increase their co-operation in promoting democracy in Belarus, including the history of the Visegrad Group itself and the group’s goals to reconstruct the region of Central and Eastern Europe, to establish democratic societies and to join Euro-Atlantic structures. The Visegrad Group is an intellectual project based on the historical experience of former dissidents, built upon the understanding that Central and Eastern European nations share a common fate. Currently, the key message of the Visegrad experience is the relatively successful model of transition that these coun-tries have developed.
On the other hand, there are also more pragmatic reasons why the Visegrad Group should help Belarus, which include the desire of all Visegrad Group members to have a stable and predictable partner with common political values on its eastern borders. The experiences with Ukraine are another reason why the V4 countries want to further develop their co-operation with Belarus. The developments after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine particularly reveal the need to build extensive alliances, especially in terms of promoting a country’s EU membership. To date, the V4 countries have not been highly influential in the EU, with the exception of Poland, but if co-ordinated they can provide Poland with the necessary support to push their common agenda.
The recent changes in Hungarian policy provide an impetus for enhancing co-operation among the V4 countries. At the same time, Hungary is only now drafting its priorities regarding Belarus and looking to create its own Belarusian policy. According to the first statements of the new Hungarian Ambassador to Belarus, Ferenc Kontra, economic inter-ests mainly underpinned the decision to open an embassy in Minsk.
Nonetheless, Hungarian priorities in Belarus include strengthening co-operation in aca-demic, cultural and student exchanges.If there is a need to build a pro-Belarusian alliance within the framework of the EU, then Hungary should be integrated into such an alliance.
The Vise grad Group provides the best framework for Hungarian involvement.
There is great potential for co-operation in the framework of the Visegrad Group on the level of the heads of the V4 diplomatic missions in Minsk. There are no regular contacts or meetings of the heads of missions, yet there should be space for more informal discussion on forging common positions towards Belarusian authorities and for the co-ordination of democracy assistance policies towards Belarus, including the organisation of common events targeting Belarusian audiences.
PIN has a long tradition of co-operation with Belarusian NGOs, and the Belarusian pro-gramme of People in Need was founded in March 1998 with the principal objective of supporting the development of independent democratic initiatives and media in Belarus.
PIN provides independent information on recent developments in Belarus and support for alternative culture in Belarus. PIN renders assistance to politically persecuted individuals, including direct financial aid. The organisation is actively involved in the development of a dialogue between Czech politicians and officials dealing with foreign affairs and representatives of Belarusian civil society. PIN also focuses on the sharing of the Czech experience of democratic transformation after 1990, and has organised study trips to the