A short trip for Italian PM Berlusconi — another political breakthrough for Belarus.
Last time Belarus saw such a high ranking visit of a Western leader almost 16 years ago. In January 1994 the then-US President Clinton came to support a young independent country on its way to nuclear disarmament. In February 2009 the EU’s high representative Solana came to encourage democratic reforms. The aims of signore Berlusconi were not that evident. One doesn’t expect it to become clear anyhow.
The Italian PM, facing criminal charges at home, paid a visit to Belarus on 30 November and spent three hours in Minsk. His public remarks focused on bilateral trade and investment. He hailed the opportunities of the customs union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia and the creation of a joint industrial zone in the town of Brest on the Polish border.
Berlusconi assured Lukashenka that Belarusians love him, as it has been proven by Belarus election results (elections which the EU actually views as rigged).
A number of documents were signed, for instance on co-operation in the fields of transportation, energy, space, security and security systems with Italy’s industry group Finmeccanica. Belarus is an important transit country for gas and oil.
Belarusian president was satisfied: Minsk got more than expected. He said he viewed Berlusconi’s visit as a gesture of support on the international arena and thanked Rome for its efforts to promote Belarus-EU relations.
“The whole Europe is having a closer look at Belarus and everybody wants to co-operate with us,” Lukashenka said, while visiting an enterprise for blind people, on 1 December.
The Italian opposition has already wondered about the aims of the trip to Minsk and demanded that Berlusconi explains his remarks for the parliament. The Belarusian opposition never expected any explanations, but questions remain: Why is Minsk so satisfied with the signed documents? Why should they be signed by Berlusconi in Minsk?
Anyway the visit of the leader of the country which is EU and NATO member was too short, more of a symbolic than substantial character.
One of the questions could be about the interest of Italian business in the the gambling business in Belarus, which Berlusconi is rumoured to have lobbied in Minsk. Kiev and Moscow have banned casinos, so Minsk could be a cosy little capital to host them.
In the end it will be business to do the talking. Berlusconi and Lukashenka are moguls who combine their private interests with those of the state. Never mind the explanations.
#1 by Mauro on December 2, 2009 - 5:23 pm
two main ideas can be drawn from this new bad call by the Italian PM:
1-he does not care much about the democratic values that lie at the foundation of Italy and the EU
2-more importantly, he showed how weak is the EU in dealing with foreign policy issues: on the very eve of the entry into force of the LT, and thus the creation of the new HR post, he paid visit to a country that has been target of EU diplomatic and political sanctions, rightly so, for its poor democratic performance. rather than going to Belarus without any coordination with the EC, and thus creating embarrassment all around Europe, the Italian PM should have at least agreed with the Commission for a coordinated approach to the Belarus case.
to avoid such loss of credibility in the future, Ms. Ashton will have to step in and prevent that random head of states will jeopardize EU foreign policy by pursuing their petty interests in controversial countries.
#2 by Mauro on December 2, 2009 - 5:25 pm
for a nice article in Italian about the new “Berlushenko”:
http://www.taurillon.org/Berlushenko
#3 by Anonymous on December 2, 2009 - 9:17 pm
Berlusconi, the wanna-be slowly-getting-there dictator, went to learn from the master
#4 by Maryna Rakhlei on December 3, 2009 - 2:40 pm
Mauro,
And I don’t believe Baroness Ashton will be able to prevent “random heads of states” from having – and pursuing – their interests.
The interests of the “random heads of states” could never be petty. Otherwise, they just send their people to “controversial countries” or somewhere else
Then. Why are so sure his trip wasn’t coordinated with Brussels? Rome should have done it. And for EU Berlusconi would have been by far the best candidate to travel to Belarus to break the ice. Brussels just wouldn’t endorse his remarks…
So far Ashton’s office commented that the EU hadn’t changed its chance on Belarus.
#5 by Polish citizen on December 4, 2009 - 4:54 pm
Personally I appreciate both Berlusconi and Lukashenko. They are so much detested by our corrupted EU elites and mainstream media, that they simply cannot be bad people. I mean, If they were bland-socialist-globalist conformists who would then appreciation would be guaranteed. As every collectivist regime, EU is afraid of individualism… Same with Klaus, although his power is only symbolic. In other words: long live Berlushenko!
#6 by proudnobody on December 4, 2009 - 5:16 pm
@Polish citizen: Sorry, what do you mean with individualism? All the trials that await B and L might be facing if it were thought of to sue him?
And indeed, it takes an individual to forbid human rights and turn a country into a pariah state
#7 by pol on December 4, 2009 - 6:47 pm
Most of EU’s politicians can be and should be sued: for collusion, for avoiding democratic criticism of their EU-Moloch (unlike Lukashenko, t h e y boost with their serious attachment to democracy), for covering pedophiles, for gargantuan corruption in Brussels and so forth.
As for individualism, it think it boils down to not surrendering to dominant fashion, intellectual or political whatever. Today this fashion entails highlighting “democracy” and “human rights” but in practice label doesn’t have much to do with an essence.
In EU democracy is not a situation where people rule, but are ruled. Democracy is not about procedures, but about specified telos. And telos can be defined arbitrarily really. If wrong party is elected, or wrong answer is given in referedum, then it is not a real democracy. Telos of democracy today is a call to surrender to rule of unelected EU elite, call to redefine the concept of sovereignty, plus maybe some anthiteism, antitraditionalism, antimoralism and global warming pseudoscience gratis.
Human rights, on the other hand, are vehicle of radical plan to transform society into demoralised bunch where every deviation should be justified. Human rights do not refer to freedom any longer; they refer to moral slavery.
I don’t know Lukashenko personally. But I believe that he simply discovered dissonance of EU and decided not to be hypocrite.
#8 by Rick Daudi on December 5, 2009 - 10:53 am
Ah… the old conspiracy theory thing, disappointing. Just for a second I anticipated an intelligent new point of view.
The indirectly democratically elected elite isn’t satisfactory, I agree. But a straight-forwardly corrupt dictatorship is still much worse. It’s probably easier to criticise the elite than it is of be thankful for the freedoms we have. Remember the sacrifices made in the struggle for our freedoms in any EU country today: by our grandparents (in the world wars) and parents (in the battle against communist dictators and/or cold war militarism).