EU en VS stoppen €87 miljoen in fonds voor Wit-Russisch maatschappelijk middenveld (en)
EUOBSERVER i / BRUSSELS - Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski referred to Tunisia and told Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko he will not last long at a pro-democracy fund-raiser in Warsaw.
The event on Wednesday (2 February) saw the EU pledge to increase funding for Belarusian civil society from €4 million to €15.6 million over the next two years. Sweden pledged €7 million extra. The US put in some €2 million. Denmark, Romania and the UK also promised money, creating a total of €87 million in new and old funds.
The cash is to be spent on a mixed bag of programmes, including direct relief for victims of repression, NGOs, independent media and higher education for Belarusian students in exile, such as the European Humanities University in Lithuania.
"Perhaps the experience of Mr Ben Ali and Mr Mubarak will make Mr Lukashenko reflect that the path he has chosen is not the best for him personally," the Polish FM said, according to newswire reports, in a reference to the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
"Mr Lukashenko, you are losing. Even in countries which recognised the elections, nobody believes that you got 80 percent of the vote ... Sooner or later you will a have to flee from your citizens and find shelter in a country which professes even lower standards than you do."
Speaking at an earlier press conference in Brussels on Monday, Mr Sikorski said EU foreign ministers reacted positively to a Polish proposal to set up a permanent pro-democracy foundation to stimulate reform in neighbouring countries.
Recalling outside help for Poland in the run-up to the 1989 overthrow of the Communist authorities, he said: "He [any given Polish dissident] knew that if he was interned, someone would take care of his family. That if his car was taken, someone would help him to replace it."
"We Poles know how it's done. We have people who know how to do these things and I think the EU has recognised this."
Putting the €87 million figure into perspective, EU-Belarus trade is currently worth over €12 billion a year. Russia, Belarus' top trade partner, has declined to criticise it's on-off ally over last December's crackdown on opposition.
The last set of EU sanctions against Belarus declined to target state-owned Belarusian exporters Belneftekhim and Belaruskalii, in part due to concern over the impact on European companies. Proposals to block IMF i and other international aid were also put on hold.
The EU's asset freeze on 157 Belarusian officials also neglected to include Yuri Sivakov, a former Lukashenko official named in a leaked US cable as the Belarusian president's bag man in an international money-laundering ring which icnludes banks in Poland and the US.