Posts Tagged EU

Russian Bread Crumbs

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on May 29, 2009

It’s very likely that from now on the movement of Belarusian authorities towards Brussels’ requirements will be even more visible. The Belarusian president was furious about yesterdays’ remarks of the Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin who publicly cast doubt on the Belarus’ ability to default on its debt by the end of the year due to the dire state of economy. He warned it was too early to say whether Belarus would receive any further loans from Moscow.

“The future of Belarus can no longer depend on Russia… The days of Minsk bowing down to Moscow are over… Belarus needs to look for its happiness on a different part of the planet.”– announced Lukashenka. And underlined that he was saying this in public consciously.

The escapade came a day after his talks with the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Minsk. Putin who travelled together with Kudrin played a “good cop” and expressed hope that Belarusian-Russian trade kept increasing in the period of the global crisis.

Lukashenka in contrast expressed outrage that Kudrin’s comments had been agreed with Putin and commented that the Russian minister had also fully consolidated with the Belarusian opposition which lived on Western grants and tried to teach the authorities to work. (That’s probably the worst you can say about someone: he is with the opposition!)

The stakes according to Lukashenka are high: “If we don’t stand tall… we are going to be running in a sweat to the right and the left in the hope that someone is going to throw us a piece of bread from the table.”

He mentioned no alternative to Russia. But we have two strong neighbours. And if we don’t bow down to Russia, the movement towards EU could become more visible. The problem is that this visibility is nothing new. So there’s little hope this movement is going to be more effective this time.

, , , , ,

10 Comments

The Berlin Wall Is Still There

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on April 30, 2009

Foreign colleagues always ask me whether the Belarusians need a permission to leave the country. No. The national passport is automatically valid for foreign travel. Of course, there are restrictions and black lists, some find out they are on the travel ban list when on the border.

But the biggest problem is to get a visa.

Since our direct European neighbours – Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – joined Schengen area, it’s been a nightmare. To spend a week-end in Vilnius that is 180 km away from Minsk you need to get a lot of documents to prove that you have a job, money and a reason to travel. The pleasure to collect the papers — some of which different embassies need to have translated, notarized and apostilled — and survive the queue costs 60 Euros.

Right, you can visit 25 Schengen countries with just one visa but I don’t think you can make it during one week-end. And you can never be sure you get the visa, nothing is guaranteed.

So it’s a lot easier to do without Vilnius, Riga and Warsaw. The number of tourists travelling to Poland since 2007 has fallen by 90%, Latvia by 82%, Lithuania – 80%… A similiar picture with Germany, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Norway, Sweden — by 79-71%.

My Russian colleagues easily get multiple Schengen visas for 5 years as the level of relations with EU is different. The Schengen visa costs the Russians and the Ukrainians 35 Euros for the same reason. Despite the fact that Brussels tries to promote people-to-people contacts with Belarus, we still have a very long way to go. Starting with full participation in European Neighbourhood Policy ending with Readmission and Visa Facilitation Agreements. Democracy goes first, then people can travel.

And there’s also the other side of the coin – EU citizens suffer as well.

As I was planning to visit friends in Spain I asked them to send me an invitation. That is: they go to the police and bring their papers: proving they have a job, money and a possibility to host me. Apart from the banking account info and detailed plan of the house the Spanish authorities requested from my very Spanish friend Anna a picture where we could be seen together (sic! or even: sick!) as well as postcards, letters and emails that we exchanged. To crown it all, the honour to invite a Belarusian cost Anna 109 Euros.

Going to the embassy I had to have all my papers PLUS the invitation card. But it never arrived. The post simply lost this valuable piece of paper…

The Berlin wall never fell. As Belarusian-Swedish writer and radio producer Dmitri Plax says: the Berlin wall never disappeared, it just moved a bit eastwards.  Now it’s intangible: less violent but even more effective.

,

19 Comments