Characteristics of the European Union's Relations with Belarus

Abstract

For many years, Belarus has been heavily dependent on the Russian Federation. Its capability to shape its own foreign policy is also extremely limited. Until recently, however, the Belarusian authorities were keenly interested in strengthening cooperation with the European Union, thus reducing their dependence on the Russian Federation. That warm-up in mutual relations was favoured in part by the partial annulment in 2016 of EU sanctions, which had been imposed on Belarus in previous years. However, events that ensued in Belarus after the fraudulent presidential elections of 9 August 2020, the enormity of repression against representatives of the Belarusian opposition, parts of the media, and ordinary citizens, Belarus' involvement on the side of the Russian Federation in its aggression against Ukraine, and the subsequent packages of sanctions imposed by the European Union in response to these unlawful and shameful actions raise legitimate questions about the future of mutual relations between Minsk and Brussels. For this reason, it seems of the essence to analyse the relations between Belarus, which has been continuously ruled by A. Lukashenko since 1997, and the European Union.